


Booth's New Life

by DorothyOz



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-14 09:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 62,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DorothyOz/pseuds/DorothyOz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Booth loved Brennan, and he left for Afghanistan with a broken heart. Fate decided to give him a hand, and bring him love again. Follow him and the squint squad in his trip to find justice and a new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the A/N at the beginning of the story, and enjoy! :D

  **BOOTH’S NEW LIFE**

* * *

  **A/N: Please read**

**Title:** Booth’s New Life

 **Summary:** Booth loved Brennan, and he left for Afghanistan with a broken heart. Fate decided to give him a hand, and bring him love again. Follow him and the squint squad in his trip to find justice and a new life.

 **Genre:** Romance, humor, some angst, crime, season rewrite… pretty much a little bit of everything…

 **Season:** Season 5 finale. Season 6 rewrite.

 **Spoilers:** All seasons

 **Pairing(s):** Booth/Original Female Character (main focus), Angela/Hodgins, Cam/Paul, Wendell/OFC, Booth/Hannah (only for a few chapters)

 **Rating:** T (If anyone disagrees please let me know)

 **Warnings:** Crime; violence and violent situations (like we’d find in the show); sexual innuendo and not graphic or descriptive sexual situations (again much like we’d find in the show). Not canon. Not B &B story.

 **Important Information:** This is a rewrite of season 6 starting from the events of the season 5 finale (the original episodes will be used to create a time line) centered on Booth’s life. There will be small and big changes both in the cases and in the personal stories of the characters, as I will be breaking with canon early in the story.

We will see Booth moving on from Brennan, and falling in love again with someone else.

Booth and Brennan will go back to being friends, as they will repair their friendship, but not without some tension, bickering, and arguments.

There will be original cases.

 **Comments:** This is a very big and complex story for me, and it’s still a WIP.

 **Disclaimer:** Read profile

 **Acknowledgements:** Big thanks to my beta [Whatever55](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/801814/whatever55) for her great job.

Also I want to thank [FaithinBones](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/3100408/FaithinBones) for her help with military data, and [Covalent Bond](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4158552/Covalent-Bond) for playing the Devil’s advocate to help me make this story stronger.

**Cover art:** [here](http://dorothyoz1939.livejournal.com/6646.html) and [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2310182)

* * *

  **BOOTH’S NEW LIFE**

* * *

**Prologue**

**Timeline:** February 2010

 **Season/episode:** Season 5’s finale

* * *

 

He approached the tomb of his dead comrade with heavy steps while observing the peaceful surroundings of the cemetery that his nation designed to honor his fellow servicemen and women. He was wearing his dress uniform and was ready to report to the base that night for a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan, but before that, he needed to see one more time the two Parkers in his life. That need brought him here, to this particular area of this big graveyard, to pay his respects to one Teddy Parker before going to hug his precious boy, Parker Matthew Booth.

Some won't understand his decision; he has a great job and a beautiful son who needed him, so leaving the country for a whole year seems wrong, and some may even call it abandonment. But, he knows best; he knows that he will be doing some good out there; he knows that he will keep in contact with his boy; he knows that they will miss each other, but that they will survive. The most important thing is that he knows that this trip will give him back his sanity, and he will come back stronger and will be a better father for it.

He knows that the moment that she gets onto that plane to Maluku, the bridge that love had built between them over the years will be broken, but that it will still be there standing tall and strong between them: a broken bridge that could be repaired or destroyed. That is where the soldier comes in. He will destroy that bridge freeing the agent to move on, allowing him to keep his much needed sanity.

So today, as he was here standing over the grave of his friend saying a prayer when over the silence of the dead soldiers, he heard the soft squeal of a baby. As if the little one was calling for him, he turned his head to the sound, ready to provide any help needed but what he found was an image that accompanied him for a long time. It was his point of no return. The feeling of warmth the sight created proved to him that he was ready to let go of his love for Brennan and truly move on.

He could see a woman, a very beautiful woman, petite, no taller than 5'5", but still with a perfectly toned body. She was completely dressed in black, or at least that is what it looked like through the black open coat that allowed a black dress and two gorgeous legs to show. Her hair was very long and curly, a deep dark brown, almost black mess of waves hanging freely down her back. But her body, her frame, her hair and her beautiful face could not even begin to compete with her big, warm, black eyes that were filled with love, strength and determination.

She was carrying a baby on her right hip, a little girl of about seven months, while holding tight to the hand of another cute girl of about three years old. Both of the little girls wore twin dark purple coats, bright purple rain boots, gloves and scarves, and berets: little tiny bright purple berets that looked exactly like military berets just in a very girly color.

The beautiful woman that caught his attention stood in front of one of the graves with her very expressive eyes staring intently at the name on the stone. Under the supervision of her mother, the little girl by her side couldn't stop moving nervously and looking in every direction possible, taking in all her surroundings including him.

Suddenly, the little girl dropped a ball and it rolled down in his direction. Obviously, without being conscious of the risks, the little girl wanted to run after it, but her mom stopped her and Booth, always the gentleman, picked up the ball and went to return it to its very cute and very small owner.

"Here ya go, kiddo," he said kneeling down to her eye level and offering the ball with an open hand.

The girl stared at the man a few seconds, studying him and then finally took the ball from his hand.

"What do we say, Maya?" her mom asked her, kindly warning her to mind her manners.

"Thank you, sir," the little girl told him with a smile.

"You're welcome, Maya," Booth answered, returning the smile. "You're wearing a very pretty beret, you know?" he complimented her.

"Yep, like my dad… but his was big, very big and green," the tiny girl told him with a sad smile but her voice was full of wonder, even at the face of the very obvious heartbreaking circumstances. She sounded exactly like any kid would when telling a story.

Booth forced himself to smile at her once more and stood up looking at the woman apologetically and with concern.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he apologized, "and I'm very sorry for your loss," he added. He really was sorry to see such a young family broken that way.

"Don't apologize, they should remember their father," the woman answered with her voice full of sorrow and tearful eyes. But Booth was surprised again by the strength in the woman. Once an old friend of him from his special ops time had told him that the strongest kind of woman was a military wife, and now he was seeing that he was absolutely right; this woman was strong and determined to make her two girls happy and keep the memories of the father that was never coming back home to them.

"I should get going," Booth said in a soft voice, knowing that the conversation had already finished.

The woman nodded, offering him a small smile and whispering a good bye. Booth turned around and started walking towards his car, ready to visit Parker. He hadn't walked far when the woman called after him.

"Hey, Sergeant, take care of yourself out there," she said in that sad voice she had, but even then it sounded more like an order than a plea.

"I will, ma'am," he promised and walked away, convinced that he wasn't going to see her or her daughters ever again.

 He couldn’t have been more wrong about it, but sometimes being wrong is a very good thing.

 

 


	2. The Carassious Auratus Auratus’ Theory

**Chapter 1:**

**The Carassious Auratus Auratus’ Theory**

**Timeline:** Between February 2010 and September 2010

 **Season/episode:** Between season 5’s finale and season 6’s premiere (during Booth’s tour in Afghanistan).

**Note:** The Carassious Auratus Auratus is the common goldfish.

**A/N:** I’ve put a complete A/N in the prologue where you can find all the information you need to decide if you wish to read this story or not (warnings, pairings, etc). Please go to the prologue and read the A/N.

* * *

 

Booth had been in Afghanistan for three months already and during that time he had kept in contact with everyone who was dear to him, more or less regularly, with only one exception: Bones.

Everyone, from Cam to Wendell or Caroline or his friend Hank, had found the time to email him every other day, she hadn’t even answered his emails. In addition to the emails that kept him in contact with his co-workers, friends, and of course his Jeffersonian family, he had called Pops, Jared, and even Cam regularly enough to know what was happening home.

He knew about the problems and imminent closure of the lab, how Cam had already secured a job as a Federal Coroner in D.C., and how Wendell was now working as a mechanic to save money to go back to college.

He knew Jared and Padme had finally chosen a date for their wedding. It’ll be in the summer, a few months after he had returned home, and Jared even asked him to be the best man. He had obviously accepted, happy that his little brother was finally growing up.

He also talked with Parker through Skype once a week, on top of almost daily emails. The boy told him all about school, his friends, his baseball or hockey games… they talked about what they would do when his tour ended, and anything they could come up with. Parker never failed to tell him how much he missed and loved him, and he reassured his son that it was mutual before promising to be careful and hanging up.

Yet, he had been unable to locate or make contact with his partner, if she was still his partner; he was starting to doubt it.

Booth had gone back to the Army and to Afghanistan with the intention of moving on from Brennan. She had made it clear that she didn’t want him, and he needed to move on. He couldn’t do it in a city full of memories of her and their partnership, and the Army offered him the distance he needed. Moreover, it offered him the opportunity to become stronger, to let the soldier in him control his life long enough to break the connection between Brennan and himself. But even in these circumstances he had wanted to keep in contact with her to keep their partnership and friendship alive. He had written her numerous emails with this objective in mind, but she hadn’t answered any of them. She hadn’t written him, something he could understand because he knew she was probably busy, but she could have answered him: just a brief email telling him she was safe would have sufficed. He was angry and hurt about it. Hell! He felt abandoned by his friend.

Nonetheless, he had continued to do his job to the best of his abilities, and kept contact with the rest of his family and friends as regularly as possible.

Today, he was talking to Cam on the phone when he asked, or more accurately tried to ask, something that had been bothering him for days.

“Do you think that it’s ok if I start with a goldfish?” he asked his old friend.

Understandably, Cam was utterly confused by Booth’s words and expressed it the best she could croaking a “What?”

“Parker wanted a dog but Rebecca and I thought that he wasn’t ready for it: for the responsibility of taking care of the dog. So, we gave him two goldfish as pets and told him that if he took good care of them we’ll talk about it again,” Booth told her the story.

Cam would have sworn that she could hear the agent, or sergeant at the moment, smile through the phone all the way from the Middle East to the states. It was probably a good memory for him and it perhaps was accompanied by a lot of other happy memories of his boy observing the fishes, feeding them, learning to care for them, or even trying to avoid cleaning the tank.

All this still didn’t explain his strange question, no matter how amusing he found the story.

“Care to elaborate, Seeley,” she prompted him to clarify his aforementioned question to her.

“Don’t call me Seeley, Camille,” he retorted more out of habit, or inertia like the squints might have said, than anything else.

“Don’t call me Camille,” she played their little game. “Now explain yourself, Big Guy,” she added in her no-bullshit boss voice.

“There’s this woman, a reporter…she’s been kinda…pursuing me a little,” Booth answered hesitantly. He wasn’t sure of what to make of the perky blonde reporter that he had arrested recently for being in a restricted area and had been pursuing him mercilessly since then. He liked feeling wanted, and he liked being the prey instead of the hunter for a change, but he still wasn’t sure of what that meant.

“I’m gonna assume that you meant that the reporter had been going after you like you were the only piece of meat at an all you can eat buffet,” Cam translated, amused by his apparent embarrassment, but she continued in a more serious way knowing that her old friend was asking for her advice. “And you’re asking me if it would be okay to have a fling and then graduate to a relationship when you feel more ready for it, hence your very odd metaphor about pets.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure what to make of her and the situation but…” he trailed off unable to explain his feelings better and trusting the coroner to understand him.

He had explained to his old friend the fallout of his relationship with Brennan and his decision to reenlist in the Army over dinner just after solving the hoarder case. Cam understood him then and even approved of his decision to stop running after her or waiting for her and moving on with his life. He had confessed to not being able to continue running after her, and to feeling quite old for it. He felt he was running out of time to build a family; he wanted love, to share his life with someone and a family of his own, and he felt that it was now or never. Cam had assured him that he deserved to have all that, and that he should do what was best for him. She had been honest, though, and told him that going to Afghanistan and the Army seemed a little extreme. Nonetheless, she had supported him in that decision and during his deployment with emails and phone calls, and now he was asking for that same honesty and Doctor Saroyan was going to deliver it.

“Yes, Booth, it is more than okay to start with a fish… Hell! If you think that you aren’t ready for a fish, start with a plant! Listen, you’re there to heal, so if what you need to help that along is to buy a fish, then buy the damn fish,” Cam answered candidly and trying to convince the man that he was doing nothing wrong and that he had her approval and support now and would have them in the future if he were to need them.

After his conversation with Cam, Booth felt a lot more confident in his decision to move on from Brennan and build a life for himself with someone else. He knew that he wasn’t ready for that yet, but he was ready for something less serious, like a fling. When he dated Catherine, he hadn’t been ready to give up on Brennan and move on yet, so he had broken it up after only two dates and that stupid tie she gave him. It hadn’t been pleasant to explain her that he was still in love with someone else, even if she took it fairly well. In fact, she guessed what the problem was, and when he couldn’t figure out how to say it gently, Catherine finished the sentence for him. As uncomfortable as it had been, it was the right thing to do, and he had done it.

Now, however, he was ready to move on, and while he wasn’t ready for a serious relationship, he was more than ready for a fling.

His mind made up, that night he sat with the blonde reporter in the mess hall and had his first date, if you could call a date having dinner in a military cantina in the middle of a war zone, with Hannah Burley.

As the months passed by, the fling became more and more serious and he found himself caring more and more for Hannah. Only two weeks before Caroline called him, he finally was ready to admit that he loved her, and not only to himself, but also to the woman that shared with him the cold desert nights of Afghanistan. The reporter reciprocated his feelings, and even if he still wasn’t completely sure of where they could go as a couple, he chose to believe that they could find that place together.

Holding onto that thought as tightly as he could, he said his farewell to Hannah only three hours after a very honest conversation with Caroline.

The prosecutor had called the base demanding to talk with Booth as soon as he returned from patrol. Once he was back in the base, his CO had hauled him into his office, and connected him to the FBI where Caroline and Cullen were waiting for him. They had explained the situation with Cam and the lab, and Cullen had drawn up orders to get him back ASAP. The lawyer had promised to start rolling the ball to get him reassigned to the FBI and free of his contract with the Army  using the special clause that Caroline and Cullen added to his contract that basically said that the FBI could recall him and cancel his contract with the military if they wanted, no explanation needed. It probably helped that his old friend Jack, now a general in the Pentagon, threatened Colonel Pelant with snatching him away from them and into his command for the duration of the deployment. Much like his phone call to Fort Myer had saved him from punishment for going AWOL to see Bones at the airport; he helped him with that contract too. Then again, no one really argues with Jack, and it was not about the stars on his shoulders, which helped and in this case a lot, but he had only been a colonel when his CO had said that trying to control Jack was like trying to control a tornado.

On a more personal note, after Cullen left the room, his conversation with Caroline had helped him a lot with something that should have been solved years ago: Parker’s custody. She was going to talk to a custody lawyer, the best in Caroline’s words, and have her call him during the next week. Booth had decided that it was time to secure his time with Parker; it was time for Rebecca and him to get a real and legal agreement to share the kid’s custody properly.

During their goodbye Booth had told Hannah about this and had explained that he was going to do his best to stay in D.C. and to avoid coming back to Afghanistan, which shouldn’t be a problem, so he didn’t expect to come back. She had understood his need to go back home, or so she said, and they had made promises of doing their best to keep what they have alive until they could see each other again.

He didn’t know where his relationship with Hannah would go, or even if it would survive the distance and the separation. In fact, he had the nagging feeling that Hannah wouldn’t be with him for long. That conversation he had with Cam about fishes and dogs kept coming back to haunt him, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a fish, a colorful fish, but a fish nonetheless for Hannah, as much as she had been for him at the beginning. He guessed that soon enough the water would get dirty and no one would want to clean it, which always results in dead fish.

But he was ready to try and figure it out along the way. Not even the negative sensations that such a hunch gave him could destroy the hope that filled him, because even if Hannah wasn’t the woman for him then someone else would be.

He now knew that he had moved on from Brennan, as proven by the fact that he loved Hannah. He will always love Brennan in some way, because he had loved her deeply for a long time, but he wasn’t in love with her anymore. He no longer wanted to share his life with her.

When he had dated Catherine, he hadn’t been ready to let go of Brennan and he had broken the relationship after only two dates. When he had started dating Hannah, he had been ready for a fling but not a relationship. Now he loved Hannah and he knew he was ready for a relationship. He was ready to fall in love with someone and he was ready to find someone with whom he could share his life, his whole life. He didn’t know if Hannah will be the one, and he suspected that she wouldn’t. However, he was sure now Doctor Temperance Brennan wouldn’t be that woman which for him meant a real, honest opportunity of falling in love again.

Booth got onto the plane that took him back to the states filled with hope: hope in the future and in love.

Like numerous nights during the last seven months in the desert, a pair of warm, soulful  dark brown eyes plagued his dreams all the way back home.

Like all those mornings after those nights, he woke up feeling stronger than when he went to sleep.


	3. The Mastodon In The Room

  


**Chapter 2:**

**The Mastodon In The Room**

**Timeline:** September 23 rd, 2010

**Season/episode:** 6x01- “The Mastodon in the Room”

**Note/warnings:** In this chapter you will see a good amount of tension between Booth and Brennan, and even some arguments. Their friendship needs some healing, and for that to happen, they need to get all the anger and hurt feelings out in the open. This is what you will see here: some repressed feelings coming out to light in a not very gracious way. Don’t worry too much, though; things will get better in time.

**Note 2:** For curious people and big fans of the show, September 23 rd was the airing date of the premiere, as stated in Fox’s site.

* * *

 

Soon after landing in D.C. and having received a text from Caroline with Bones’ flight information, Booth went to meet her at the Reflecting Pool like they had planned before their trips.

They talked a little bit about those trips and their love lives, and yes, Booth lied about the amount of action that he saw in Afghanistan and exaggerated a bit about the deepness of his relationship with Hannah. But he wasn’t feeling particularly forthcoming with Brennan about his private business considering that she hadn’t bothered to keep in contact with him during his deployment. He was man enough to admit that he was hurt by her attitude and extremely angry about it.

Add to that the consequences their trips had on the rest of the team. With both of them gone, and Hodgins and Angela in an extended honeymoon, the Jeffersonian Medico-legal lab became unproductive and was closed for the time being. The interns couldn’t continue their internships without a professor, meaning no internship program which added to the unproductiveness of the lab and resulted in the interns scattered all around the country, with Wendell even in a workshop saving money to go back to college.

Cam didn’t blame him. She understood his decision and she knew they could have survived a year with another FBI guy, but she blamed Brennan for putting her needs over the lab’s and worst over her own students; and she blamed Angela and Jack for choosing pleasure over the lab. However, she was especially angry with Brennan because it was her trip what prompted the other two squints to have their extremely long honeymoon.

The fact that Cam wasn’t blaming him was the only thing stopping Booth from doing so. He knew he had made the right decision when he signed for a year in Afghanistan and he didn’t feel guilty for going, but he felt sad and responsible to a certain extent for the consequences his trip had over the lab and the squints. It was only Cam’s forgiveness that allowed him to avoid the guilt. It was her who pointed out that less than a third of the responsibility was his: the scientists decided by themselves to leave and he had no responsibility towards the interns, like Doctor Brennan did; that his absence alone wouldn’t have had these catastrophic repercussions. She reminded him that he did what was best for him and Parker, therefore freeing him from the guilt.

Guilty or not, he was back in the states for good and he was more than ready to solve the case and save Cam’s job.

And that they did. In a shady, creepy, and underfunded Federal Coroner’s lab the recently reunited team, Wendell and Sweets included, discovered that the unidentified child’s skeleton was not that of Logan Bartlett, the missing boy of the news. The body was of a three-year-old North Korean immigrant who died by accident when choking on one of the wood screws of his crib. Booth and Brennan reassured the mother and her grandfather that they knew the death was an accident and no legal actions would be taken against them for it, and the agent was pretty sure that action would not be taken for the illegal burial either since he was positive Caroline wasn’t going to prosecute them.

The team decided to celebrate the solved case but none of them were feeling completely happy about the outcome because, even with one child’s death explained, there still was another child missing out there.

Talking about this in the Founding Fathers was when Booth remembered that Logan’s father, Trevor, brought a car only three days after his son’s disappearance. Suddenly he put all the pieces of the puzzle together: Trevor and Carrie Bartlett were separated and Carrie, a recovering alcoholic had Logan’s custody, something that angered Trevor, so he took Logan.

The next day, Booth, Brennan and Carrie went to Dover Park because Logan loved that park with the hope of finding the boy with his father. When the pair finally appeared, Booth arrested the man and Brennan got the kid unharmed to his mother.

* * *

 

The stakeout had been really clean and there was no reason to suspect that Logan had been hurt by his father in any way or form. Yet, Booth decided to take mother and child to the hospital and have him checked out by a doctor just in case. He ordered another agent to take Trevor to the Hoover and drove the four of them to the hospital after expertly hooking Parker’s old car seat into the SUV. He had thrown the car seat into the truck that morning to ensure Logan would travel safely. His gut kept insisting on it, convinced that they were going to get the kid back.

Soon they were all waiting in the emergency room for a pediatrician to come down to examine Logan since their pediatrician was otherwise occupied. Booth was anxious for some unexplained reason which had him walking in circles around the room. He didn’t know what was making him so nervous because Logan was okay so his anxiety was unnecessary. Maybe it was just that he didn’t like hospitals.

Whatever was making the agent so tense, one thing was sure: he wasn’t expecting to know the doctor nor the warm light of recognition in her eyes.

“Sarge, if I’m not mistaken, and I’m not; I told you to be careful. Care to explain to me what are you doing back so soon?” the woman asked, looking directly into his eyes.

“Yes ma’am, you did, and I took very good care of myself. The FBI called me home for a case. I’m an agent,” Booth answered, looking more like a chastised five-year-old child than an almost forty-year-old grown up man.

“Yet you came back with broken ribs,” the doctor retorted, concern showing through her beautiful eyes and voice.

Brennan had noticed during Trevor’s arrest the care Booth moved with, how he favored his left side. It was very subtle indicating his ribs were most probably almost healed, or had only been bruised to begin with, but also proving he had been hurt in some fashion. Still Brennan glared at the woman, not sure she should trust a pediatrician when talking about Booth’s health when she knew nothing about the credentials of the woman, and she had only seen him walking in circles a few seconds in an ER waiting room. She was unwilling to admit that she was a little annoyed that he allowed her such a familiarity, or that he seemed captivated by her.

“I don’t know who you are but Booth’s ribs are not broken. Even if his movements denote care, his ribs have either healed already or were only bruised to begin with,” she told the doctor without hesitation, convinced of the veracity of her statement.

“Oh, they were broken, believe me, Agent…” the pediatrician argued, as convinced as the anthropologist. Something in her voice told Booth she was using her own experience, or her husband’s, if you want to split hairs, to make this guess.

“Doctor Brennan,” the anthropologist corrected bristly.

“Sorry. Doctor Brennan, your friend here had broken ribs very recently,” the doctor told her in no uncertain terms. “But now, if you don’t mind, he is not my patient at the moment.”

She then gave her attention to Carrie Bartlett and introduced herself. “Hello, Mrs. Bartlett. I’m Doctor Foster and I’m here to check Logan out. Please, follow me to one of the cubicles.”

Once beside the examination room, she ushered the family inside and told the other two to wait by the door. “Wait here,” she ordered Booth, “I’ll be redoing that bandage you’re wearing too loose because it annoys you in a minute.”

Booth knew that he had been caught and that he had no way to escape it, so he leaned on the wall and waited patiently, but Brennan wasn’t so accepting of the petite doctor’s opinions and she made her opinions clear.

“How could she possibly know if you had broken ribs? You can’t know that now. It’s impossible to see if they were broken and had healed recently, or if they were only cracked or bruised to begin with; not just by seeing you walk a few seconds; and surely not a pediatrician. Not to mention it is absolutely impossible to know how tight or loose your bandage is if you are really wearing one,” she told him, clearly upset by the other woman, “and why did you allow her to order you around? That familiarity is hardly professional!”

“Bones, relax for God’s sake!” Booth retorted, a little annoyed with her attitude. If it had been any other woman he would have thought that she was jealous. “First, it’s my decision to let her talk to me in one way or another, not yours. Second, I’ve let you order me around more than once. And third, she’s right; my ribs were broken six weeks ago.”

Brennan was ready to argue, but the door of the examination room flew open and Doctor Foster signaled him to enter the room. She assured them Logan was perfectly healthy and completely unharmed. Carrie picked Logan up in her arms and walked towards the door to leave the room at the same time that Brennan pushed her way inside, not caring at all about the glare the other doctor was giving her.

“Doctor Brennan, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave the room,” the pediatrician told her, making it clear that it was an order, not a suggestion.

Seeing Bones was going to argue and the contest could escalate to a bloody fight Booth decided to put an end to it. Plus, he wanted Carrie and Logan where he could see them until they got to the Hoover and he could make certain for himself that Trevor was under control. Who knew what the guy was capable of if he wasn’t?

“Ladies, all three of you stay in the room,” he ordered. Carrie looked at him oddly and then gave an even odder glare to Brennan. She too probably thought that his partner was jealous, but eventually she got back in and closed the door behind her.

That done, Booth took off his jacket, tie, and dress shirt, and hopped up to the bed ready to be examined and patched up.

“So, how are Maya and…” Booth asked to make a little conversation because he was really interested in them and because he wanted to make the awkward moment a little less awkward.

“Sarah… Her name is Sarah, and they are both good, Sarge… Or is Agent now?” she answered, smiling at him.

“Booth, just call me Booth,” he corrected, returning the smile.

“Okay, Booth. These ribs were definitively damaged: a broken rib and two cracked ones, right side… I’m gonna say that the SAPI plate stopped the round but didn’t avoid the broken ribs… only three touched ribs, that’s very lucky of you,” the doctor deduced and Booth just nodded. There was no need for any other answer.

“How can you possibly know that? How did you even know that his ribs had been broken?” Brennan asked, not believing the doctor could know so much with so little information. A five second walk in a waiting room, and a cursory examination could not possibly tell a pediatrician enough about Booth’s ribs.

“An educated guess,” the doctor answered simply. Booth who was looking at her face, however, saw the shadow cross her eyes, confirming his previous thoughts. It was not simple guess. Her husband had probably suffered the same kind of injury more than once, allowing her to see the particular careful movement of a man with damaged ribs.

“They’re almost fully healed. You must still be sore, but everything looks fine. However, I’m gonna redo your bandage to make sure that you can heal completely ASAP,” she explained him while she got a new, clean bandage out and started wrapping his chest meticulously.

“So which is it: you don’t have a first name, you don’t like it, or you just don’t wanna tell me?” she asked in a light flirtatious way, very light, nothing obvious, but still there.

“Seeley, and I don’t like it at all, Doc,” he told her, and putting on his charming smile, he added in a playful voice, “you should reciprocate, Doctor Foster.”

“Alexandra… Alex,” she answered with a smile while she finished setting the bandage tight enough to really be helpful. “That’s it. You can get dressed again,” the doctor told him. “And don’t you dare loosen it again or I’ll kick your ass, capisci?”

The agent nodded and suppressed a smile the best he could. She already seemed to know him far too well. He ordered himself to stop thinking about the doctor in that way, and kept getting dressed.

Something occurred to him then: “I’m gonna need a report of Logan’s check-up for the file.”

“I guessed as much. I’ll have someone deliver it to you at the Hoover today or tomorrow tops,” she told him.

“Perfect,” Booth answered smiling once more to the beautiful doctor and putting on his dress jacket. What no one noticed as they all left the room was the toy car falling out from one of his pockets.

* * *

 

Brennan harassed him about the doctor all the way to the Hoover, asking question after question that he refused to answer. She only finally stopped when Mrs. Bartlett pointed out that he probably didn’t want to answer in front of her.

He knew that that wasn’t going to be the end of it, but still he sent a very grateful look and smile to the woman in the backseat.

Once in the Hoover, Booth directed them to Charlie. “Mrs. Bartlett, this is Agent Charlie Burns. He’ll take care of your statement, because I have a very important lunch meeting and still have to take Dr. Brennan to the lab,” he explained to the woman.

Leaving Mrs. Bartlett and Logan with Charlie, Booth went to check that Trevor was in custody and that the procedures had been followed to the T. He didn’t want the guy to escape justice due to a mistake in the paperwork or something equally stupid.

That done, he took Brennan back to the Jeffersonian, and of course, like he had predicted, she continued grilling him about Alexandra Foster. She wanted to know everything that there was to know about the doctor, and kept accusing him of flirting with her while in a serious relationship with Hannah.

Booth, who was annoyed to begin with, was getting angry with every new question she posed in that accusatory tone of hers. Who the hell did she think she was to judge him? He hadn’t been flirting or he didn’t think he had, and if he had, it had been harmless. She made it sound like he was cheating on Hannah, which was not the case. He wasn’t going to cheat on Hannah no matter how big of a lie that line about heart attacks was. But the worst part was that she was acting more like a jealous girlfriend than his partner, and she didn’t get to do that. No sire, she didn’t have that right!

At first, he had tried to defend himself while keeping his anger under control, but the angrier he got the more difficult it was, so he settled for just ignoring her. That is until they finally reached the lab.

He saw Cam leaving it, surely she was going for lunch, and decided to give her something he had for her, so he got a little package from the glove compartment and they both got out of the SUV. And just then and there in front of Cam she burst something that threw him through the edge.

“I’m just saying, Booth, that it is not like you to have sex with a woman without even knowing her name and then flirt with her when dating another one,” Brennan said in that judgmental tone she used when she thought that she had everything figured out and had already deemed him a bastard. “Plus, she shouldn’t have been flirting with you while treating you, it is very unprofessional, and so were you, doing it during a case. It was a very unprofessional attitude of you, Booth.”

“Enough!” he barked, facing her with an aggressive stance, showing that he was clearly mad at her. “You are jumping to conclusions, Doctor Brennan. I haven’t slept with her, and I wasn’t flirting. I have never cheated on a woman and I’m not going to start now. But even if I was flirting, it wouldn’t be your business and I sure as hell am not allowing someone who dated two guys at the same time to judge me,” he told her in an angry voice. “And I’m going to leave the lecture about professionalism for another day, Doctor I-leave-my-students-without-professor-and-I-date-my-partner’s-boss.  Not to mention that little stint back there grilling me about Alex in front of the Bartletts.”

He then turned around and without another word and without giving the little package to Cam got in the car and drove away. He left Brennan completely stunned and rooted to the spot, probably asking herself what had just happen, but he didn’t care, at least not at the moment, he was way too mad at her to care.

The only thing that delayed him was a text from Cam summoning him for lunch the next day to explain what she had just witnessed and wishing him luck for his meeting.

* * *

 

That same afternoon, Doctor Foster went to the Hoover to give the promised report on Logan’s case and to return the toy car. She had planned on using a carrier to take the report to the FBI until a nurse gave her the toy convinced it must be Logan’s because she was the last one to use that examination room with the FBI case, and before that there had been no toys in the room. She changed her mind then, and took everything with her on her way home.

In the hall, someone had directed her to the fourth floor where Special Agent in Charge Seeley Booth’s office was apparently located. She had been a little surprised at first by the rank she had been given when she asked for him, but then she had the entire elevator trip to think about it and she had to conclude that it made sense: the guy moved with the confidence of a seasoned agent.

When the elevator doors finally opened at her destination she almost bumped into a big black woman who seemed to be leaving the building. After apologizing to each other, Alex asked her for Booth’s office. The woman looked at her strangely and then ordered her with a wave of her hand to follow her.

On their way to Booth’s office, or at least she thought they were headed that way, the bulky woman decided to make some conversation. She introduced herself as Caroline Julian, D.A. and explained that Booth had already left for the day because he had some important things to do for his reinstating in the FBI after his service in Afghanistan. In turn, Alex introduced herself and explained her presence in the building.

“So, Doctor Foster, you came all the way here just to hand Booth a report and return a toy… hum… is that about right, Cherie?” Caroline asked while looking intently into Alex eyes, “because it looks to me like you just wanted to see the handsome FBI guy again.”

“I didn’t say that, Miss Julian,” Alex retorted looking at her straight in the eye. She could admit to herself that the lawyer was right, but she wasn’t ready to admit it to anyone else, even if her answer was giving it away.

“Yet, you didn’t deny it, Cherie,” Caroline answered sizing the doctor and deciding almost instantly that she liked her better than the reporter. Yes, you could argue that she hadn’t met the reporter, just seen some photos, but she had a good eye for these things, and she knew Seeley Booth, and Seeley Booth wasn’t in love with the reporter, he loved her enough, but he wasn’t in love with her.

Alex decided wisely to not answer to that. She wasn’t going to admit it, but she wasn’t going to lie either. Plus she got the feeling that the woman in front of her was a real mama bear; she was to be feared but also a good ally depending on which side you were on. If she ever decided she wanted Seeley Booth, she wasn’t ready to admit that she may, Caroline would have to be in her side of the camp.

“Well, here we are, Cherie. Leave that on the table,” Caroline ordered while she fetched those colorful note pads of the agent. Once she found one, she handed the paper to Alex. “Leave him a note.”

That done, she ushered her out of the room and called for a very young agent: tall, skinny, black hair, dark eyes, baby face, in fact he didn’t look older than twenty something and he looked like a desk bound agent. He sure wasn’t a G.I. Joe. Caroline called him “kid” for a very good reason. He did look like a kid, way too young to be in the Hoover building, however he did work in the building and she ordered him to get Booth’s office door locked.

When they finally made it to the elevator and the doors were closed, Caroline gave the doctor some advice. “He’s dating a war correspondent now but I don’t expect it to work for much longer…you may want to drop by in a month or two.”

Alex knew she was in Caroline Julian’s good book, so she smiled at the woman and left the Hoover happier than she entered.

* * *

 

**Thanks for reading. Please, let me know what you think :)**

* * *

 

 **A/N: About the argument:** I know that some of you are probably ready to throw some rotten tomatoes my way. Both Booth and Brennan were hurtful towards each other during their argument, but arguments are sadly often pretty ugly. Things will get better between them but for that to happen they need to get all the shit out. Just bear with me for a while.

**A/N 2: About Booth’s ribs:**

Due to the way SAPI plates work broken ribs and/or internal bleeding is possible and frequent injury when the plate stops a bullet. These plates stop the bullet from going through the body, but they’re made basically of ceramic materials (hard but fragile) and the energy of the impact of the bullet on the body is absorbed by the softer (and more elastic) body of the soldier.

Booth’s attitude towards the bandage he’s wearing is based on what a friend of mine did when he had 2 broken ribs after the motorcycle accident. Once his ribs were fused the bandage annoyed him because it compressed his thoracic box not allowing him to breathe freely. Of course, this was done to allow the ribs to heal completely but he kept loosening the bandage… which in turn drove his mom (a nurse) crazy!


	4. The mastodon displacement

**Chapter 3:**

**The mastodon displacement**

 

 **Timeline:** September, 2010; First week upon the team’s return to D.C.

 **Season/episode:** Post 6x01- “The Mastodon in the Room”

**Note/warnings:** In this chapter you will see some tension between Booth and Brennan. Their friendship will heal, but you must remember that it will take time.

* * *

 

Booth left Afghanistan with his final orders for release from duty and his DD form 214 in hand, knowing that Caroline and Cullen had already rescinded his contract with the Army, meaning he left the base completely free of his liaison with the Military. They reinstated him temporally to the FBI that very same night after the meeting about Logan’s case the squint squad, Caroline, and himself held at the Hoover, but to get himself fully reinstated in his post, he needed to pass a medical check-up, the physical tests, a psychological review, and recertify as a marksman. So after his lunch meeting with the custody lawyer, Julia Garcia, that had gone better than he expected, he went to see the FBI doctor.

Dr. William told him for the second time in a day that he was more or less healed, sore but healed, and that he was free to go back to his normal duties in the bureau and to pass his physical tests.

He felt pretty good about it, so he called the Hoover to schedule the physical and the marksman tests for that very same week before he got swamped with some case. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with Sweets, so he left that for another day, and called Cam to change their lunch for dinner tonight; he even offered to cook for her. Cam, who was eager to know what his argument with Brennan had been about, agreed immediately.

He busied himself with making dinner, and calling Parker to ask him about his day and wish him goodnight, just to talk a little with his kid, until Cam finally arrived.

After the polite greetings and the common pleasantries, Cam jumped directly to the event she had witnessed. “So what was all that about, Booth? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so mad at her and it isn’t the first time she has told you something inappropriate.”

“Remember the woman with the two girls that I saw in the cemetery before my deployment?” he asked.

“Yeah, you described them to me in detail, and I mean in great detail, in one of your emails,” Cam answered. The timber of her voice told him that he had given her way too much detail but he decided not to comment on it.

“She was the pediatrician that checked Logan and she noticed my ribs and had redone my bandage,” he explained.

“Okay, so how did you go from a pediatrician redoing your bandage to Brennan cranky about it and you two arguing?” Cam asked in her boss voice when he stopped his explanation there.

Booth groaned, dreading having to explain the whole incident to his old friend; he got the feeling that he was going to have to explain his feelings for Brennan, Hannah, and even the doctor. “Everything started with Bones arguing with her about my ribs; then she said that the way she talked to me wasn’t professional because she was friendly… then she grilled me with questions during the whole drive; saying that I was flirting with Alex… everything she said was in that accusatory tone of hers that tells you that she has already judged and condemned you… and well, you heard her… I just snapped.”

“Alex?” Cam asked, lifting one of her perfectly manicured eyebrows.

“Not you too, Camille,” Booth whined. “Her name is Alexandra Foster, and yes we exchanged names, but it was friendly, not flirty.”

“Don’t call me Camille, Seeley, and are you sure that you two weren’t flirting because your boyish smile tells me that you like her,” Cam argued.

“So what if I like her, Cam? She’s an attractive woman. It doesn’t mean that I’m gonna cheat on Hannah or anything. It was awkward, you know: the three women there while she checked my ribs… so I asked about her kids, she asked my name, and I asked about hers, and I admit that I was playful when I asked her name, but the rest all strictly friendly, I swear,” the agent defended himself. “And don’t call me Seeley.”

“Yeah, I can see how having three women surrounding you while you’re half naked would have make you uncomfortable,” Cam joked in a suggestive voice that made Booth groan. “Okay, no more jokes. Look, your life is none of her business so live it however you please; but let her do whatever she wants. Don’t put your nose in her business either. Just don’t allow it to affect your job,” she said more serious. “But let me tell you that you kinda trapped yourself with that heart attack line you fed her.”

“Yeah, I know, but in some ways it’s true… I can’t go back to Bones. I just can’t, and I love Hannah… I’m not in love with her, and I’m not sure how long it’s gonna last, but I do love her,” he answered honestly, expressing his feelings the best he knew how.

Cam nodded, accepting his answer and letting her understanding show on her face. He had had enough of Brennan’s emotional issues, and now he was way past the point of no return. He just didn’t love Brennan that way anymore. He will always love her in some way because he was in love with her for a very long time, and his love was intense and deep, and it left one of those marks he used to talk about. Just like he loved Rebecca, and he would always love her in some way for giving him Parker, but he no longer desired to share his life with her. For different reasons and in different ways his love for both women faded from his heart leaving those marks. Brennan’s mark was raw and still hurt him, but it was a mark, no longer the present. And because it was only a mark he could finally move on. If he moved on with Hannah or not, wasn’t going to change that.

Considering that topic closed, she went to another one, one she knew her friend considered the most important of all. “And now, Big Guy, tell me how was the meeting with the lawyer?” the coroner asked showing real interest.

“Good. She’s going to draw a contract. We’ll discuss it, change anything I want changed and then we’ll talk with Rebecca, her lawyer, if she wants one, and a mediator. I don’t want to put Parker through a custody hearing if I can help it, so Julia suggested the mediator thing. She said I have good options of getting half custody going to court but with the mediator it depends on how receptive Rebecca is to it. She thinks it will be relatively easy for me to get more and regular time with Parks, and more power to decide things and guarantee that she won’t be able to take him away, you know move to another state with him or something. I may not get a 50/50 deal but I would save Parker the ordeal and get more and more regular time with him,” he explained with a bright smile.

“That’s good. I’m happy for you, Booth,” Cam said honestly. “So, when are you going to meet with her again?”

“This weekend, Saturday morning in her office,” he answered excited about the prospect of getting more legal rights over his son. “Caroline gave her my name, so I think she’s giving me some kind of special treatment.”

“Good. You’ve earned that special treatment, Booth,” Cam told him firmly.

“And now that I’ve been fed, and I have my dose of gossip and I know that everything seems to be good with you, I’m going to go back to my teenage daughter,” Cam said standing up.

Booth followed suit and stood up too, helping her into her coat and showing her to the door. “Oh, wait, I have something for you,” he said when she was already leaving through the door.

He went back to the kitchen to retrieve the small package that he forgot to give her do to his argument with Brennan. He came back with it and handed it to his old friend. “Thanks for your support”.

“One of those wood things you carve with your issued knife when you get bored?” she asked teasingly, yet her smile was honest and her eyes told him that she appreciated it.

Booth nodded to let her know that her guess was accurate, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight, Cam. See you tomorrow… lunch, you got to tell me about Paul.”

* * *

 

The next day when he reached his office, he found on his desk the report Alex brought him, the toy, and a simple note telling him to give the toy back to its rightful and short owner and to take care of himself. He smiled softly seeing it was Parker’s car. It probably had been in his jacket for a while before his deployment. Still he was grateful because Parker loved that car and he probably had been looking for it all this time.

“So, Cherie, did she leave her number?” Caroline asked, entering his office as if she owned the place.

“No, no, no, not you too,” Booth whined like a little kid. “And she did not leave her number.”

“Umm… Shame. I like her; you should call the hospital, Cherie,” she told him completely unphased by his complains.

“Why must you all pester me with this?” he asked dramatically and making a show of letting his body crumble into his chair.

“Who is all? And we must because your smile gives away that you like the doctor, Cherie,” she said with that voice and pose that told him arguing with her was useless.

“Bones, Cam, and now you… you all keep saying I like Alex,” he complained.

“Umm… Alex, eh? … And you aren’t denying it either,” Caroline pointed out, just like Cam did the previous night.

“Caroline, I love Hannah. Even if I call Alex it wouldn’t be because I like her, it would be to thank her for returning Parker’s toy,” Booth said, a little annoyed with so much interference.

“So you love Hannah, but you’re going to call the doctor. Cherie, are you sure about this reporter of yours?” Caroline asked, now using her motherly voice.

“Look, Caroline, I love Hannah. I do. I don’t know how long it will last; I want roots and she doesn’t… we’ll have to make decisions sooner or later, but I do love her, and until then I’m going to enjoy what I have with her, okay?” he told her honestly.

“Fair enough, Cherie. But let me tell you that the pretty doctor couldn’t deny that she came all the way here to see you, so call her!” she ordered and left the room just like she got there, like she owned the place.

Booth picked up the phone and called the hospital as soon as Caroline was out of ear range. The nurse that answered the phone told him that Doctor Foster was in surgery but that he could leave a message.

“Thanks for returning my son’s toy,” he dictated the message. “Yes, my name is Seeley Booth,” he told her through the phone.

* * *

 

During the rest of the week Booth passed both his physical and marksman tests, and even scheduled the first session with Sweets for his psychological review for the next one.

He had a meeting with Assistant Director Hacker (A.D. of Criminal Investigative Division), Executive Assistant Director Goldsmith (E.A.D of the Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch) and Deputy Director Cullen about his reinstatement in the bureau including the psychological review that he was going to need to pass, his need to delegate more tasks on his agents due to the change he hoped to accomplish in his life with Parker, and even the fact that he was dating a reporter.

He had been honest with them about everything. He had promised to make sure dating a reporter wouldn’t become a problem for his cases and that he would take his sessions with Sweets seriously.

Then, the meeting turned into a department organizational one. He reminded them that when they promoted him two years ago, when his predecessor retired, to Special Agent in Charge of the Major Crimes Department in D.C. Field Office he had been the only agent in charge of one the units inside said department and the liaison with the Jeffersonian, even if during the course of a case he had done more than just homicides. He told them, that then he hadn’t known how to delegate but that in time he did learn how to do it, and before he left for Afghanistan he reorganized the department in different specialized units or teams and promoted the agents in charge of those units to Supervisory Special Agents to put them a step over the rest of his agents.

On that note, Burns and Corby, who had in fact substituted him during his deployment, were his right hands and he had given them an increasing number of tasks, so he told his bosses that it was time for them to be officially considered his seconds in command, in military terms. The military terminology lifted Hacker’s eyebrows but got the point across: they both should be promoted to Assistant Special Agent in Charge.

After this, Booth told his bosses that they couldn’t allow another disaster with the lab like the recent one to occur, nor could they stop working with them just because he needed a vacation or broke an arm. The solution was simple: they needed another agent that could work with the squints if he wasn’t available. But seeing how every time another agent had substituted for him, for whatever reason, had been a complete disaster, he proposed training a junior Special Agent from the start, someone who was past the probationary period but still fresh from Quantico. He would chose and train the agent himself, and then he would also introduce the agent into the lab himself to avoid the squints seeing him as an outsider.

Finally, Booth had made it clear that he really needed to delegate as much as possible in Burns and Corby, especially if he was going to train someone to be a secondary liaison with the Jeffersonian on top of his entire work load. Due to the changes he needed to do for Parker, he wasn’t going to be able to pull as many hours as he did in the past which meant he needed to delegate a lot.

Cullen told him that the only reason he pulled those hours was quite simple: he didn’t really know how to delegate and he didn’t do it enough.  It was probably related to not having a life outside his job, his son who he only saw occasionally when his ex allowed him to do so, and his squints and other work friends. He didn’t mention that, though; Cullen liked Booth too much to point it out to him. “You learned to delegate? You mean to tell me that almost doubling your hours is delegating. Hell! The budget guys are going to give you a party. We’re gonna save a fortune when we stop paying your overtime!”

Anyhow, Cullen was happy he had finally seen it and had approved all the changes that he wanted to do and even promised him a secretary to help him with his paperwork. “The last thing I need is for you to have an excuse to procrastinate with your damn paperwork,” were his exact words about the issue.

Anyway, the weekend was the best part of his week.

First, he met with Julia Garcia again on Saturday to talk about Parker’s custody. She had drawn not one, but two contracts for them to review and change or correct as he pleased. She hoped, after whichever changes he wanted to make, at least one of them would be accepted by Rebecca during the meeting with the mediator. And it went pretty well, after two hours discussing it both contracts were ready for said meeting with the mediator.

But if that wasn’t good enough, he spent his whole Sunday with Parker. After morning mass, they visited Pops for lunch and played sports in the park. Then he had returned the toy car to Parker, who had been very happy to recuperate his precious toy, and they went to the diner for milkshakes to celebrate.

So when Monday arrived Booth was in a very good mood. The good week coupled with his morning talk with Hannah and that he could give his good news about the promotions to Burns and Corby today put him in an excellent mood.

So good was his mood that it didn’t falter when Cullen introduced him to Miss Evelyn Rose, a beautiful and young black girl, his new secretary, and handed him a big stack of files. “Choose one of those agents, pronto.”

* * *

 

Cam and Booth had scheduled lunch, so when lunch time came around Cam went to the Hoover to meet with her friend. Hodgins, Angela, Brennan and Wendell, who was the squintern of the lab until Wednesday, decided to join her. Cam was pretty sure they only wanted to gossip about the agent’s new girlfriend, but she had caved and just pushed Wendell into her car and told the rest to meet her at the Hoover. She didn’t have the patience today to deal with Brennan and Angela. Who knew how those two were going to behave considering what she had witnessed last week and how protective the artist was of the doctor.

When they arrived Booth was in his office with Miss Rose so they had to wait for him.

“Who is that?” Hodgins asked pointing to the woman inside Booth’s office. “She can’t be the reporter, she isn’t blonde.”

“Yeah, and Hannah is in the Middle East,” Wendell said absentmindedly while admiring the young woman.

“She’s Booth’s secretary,” Payton Perotta answered, coming from behind them. “Quit drooling squint,” she said to Wendell, noticing the look on his face.

“Booth has a secretary?” Hodgins asked confused; he clearly didn’t know why the agent would have or even need a secretary.

“Since this morning, yes. She was already at her desk when Booth got in. Cullen came down soon after, introduced them and gave him a pile of files. Rumor says he doesn’t want the boss procrastinating with the paperwork now that he’s going to delegate more and leave at normal hours. Again rumor says cutting back in the extra hours is due to certain blonde reporter, I personally think it’s for Parker… Who knows? Whatever the reason, the boss got a secretary,” Perotta explained to the squints.

“Why do you call Booth boss?” Brennan asked Perotta.

“Uh, Bren, he does have an office, you know. He is the boss of some of the agents here and Perotta is one of them,” Angela explained as if it were obvious. She didn’t notice however Cam’s and Wendell’s amused smiles.

“Not some, Miss Montenegro, every agent in this department reports to him,” Perotta corrected her.

Hodgins, Angela, and Brennan stared at her dumbfounded, but it was Wendell who took them back to reality. “He’s the Agent in Charge of the Major Crimes Department in D.C.”

Seeing as they still looked confused, Cam decided to clarify it by explaining a little about the FBI structure. “The Criminal Investigative Division is divided in different departments, one of those is Major Crimes and Booth is the boss of that department here in the D.C. Field Office.”

“Wait,” demanded Angela, who was starting to get how good of a position Booth had in the FBI. “How high is he in the food chain exactly?”

“Hacker is in charge of the division, Goldsmith is in charge of the branch in which the division is included and Cullen is directly on top of Goldsmith,” Cam told her.

“You mean between Booth… our Booth and Deputy Director Cullen there are only two other steps up the ladder,” Hodgins said surprised.

“Yeah, pretty much, the Assistant Directors in charge of the offices or divisions, and the Executive Assistant Directors in charge of the branches,” answered Wendell. His face told Hodgins that he was having way too much fun with his friends’ surprise over Booth’s post.

Hodgins, Angela and Brennan almost had to pick up their jaws from the floor to the amusement of the other three.

“C’mon guys, you’ve worked with him for years, you should know by now that he’s not stupid,” Cam said annoyed with them.

“I know that and I knew that he does more than just work with us… I just thought that he was in charge of a group of agents that investigate murders, you know… a team not a whole department,” Angela defended herself.

“No wonder the guy needed a break,” commented Perotta with a disapproving look directed to the squints, minus Cam and Wendell, and walked away shaking her head in disbelief.

Before anyone could talk again, Booth’s office door opened and both secretary and agent went out.

“Find Shaw, Frost and Davis. Let’s see if I can interview them today or tomorrow,” Booth told the woman.

“Yes, sir, right away,” Evelyn answered politely.

“No, not right away. Go have lunch,” he ordered with an amused smile at the young woman’s enthusiasm.

“But sir, I could call them, schedule an interview for this afternoon, and then leave for lunch,” Evelyn argued.

“Okay, call them and then go,” Booth ordered more firmly this time. “No sense in having a secretary when I’m not here.”

“Yes sir,” she said politely and walked to her desk, the one nearest to her boss’s office to make those calls.

Booth joined the squints and noticing the shocked expressions of Angela, Hodgins and Brennan he sent a questioning look to Cam and Wendell.

“Since when are you in charge of the Major Crimes Department? And why didn’t you tell me?” Brennan asked, irritated at him for not telling her.

“You knew that I was in charge of the homicide unit and had been for a while when we started our partnership, right? Well, soon after you dated Jared, Young retired and as I had the best solving rate, they gave me his post. At the time I didn’t feel like sharing and then I just assumed you knew, I mean it is all over the paperwork, and we do a lot of paperwork, Bones,” he answered in the same irritated tone than his partner.

“And now, mind if we go for lunch, guys? I’m hungry,” Booth told the group.

Cam, knowing about the recently surfaced problems between the partners, wisely decided to not comment on it. The rest of the squints were just too confused to do anything else other than nod.

While the group walked towards the elevators, Evelyn called Booth, suddenly remembering something.

“Evelyn, it’s lunch time. I’m going for lunch, and you should be doing the same, so tell me why are you running after me instead of making those calls and going for lunch?” Booth asked turning around to face the young woman.

“I took a call for you this morning, before you arrived, sir. I completely forgot it because we were going through all those files, sir,” she explained smiling apologetically.

“Okay, what was the message? Did you write it down?” he asked. “And call me Booth, Evelyn.”

“No, sir, I didn’t write it down, but I remember it,” she answered. When Booth made a wave with his hand indicating she should continue, she did so. “Alex Foster called to say: you’re welcome and sorry for taking so long answering your call.”

Alex’s call put a goofy smile on Booth’s face. He thanked his secretary, told her once more to stop calling him sir and ushered the squints out for lunch hoping against hope they would let that particular topic slide.


	5. The Couple In The Cave And The Reporter In The City

**Chapter 4:**

**The Couple In The Cave And The Reporter In The City**

**Timeline:** October, 2010; Second week upon the team’s return to D.C.

 **Season/episode:** 6x02- “The Couple in the Cave”

**Note/warnings:** In this chapter you will see some tension between Booth and Brennan. Their friendship will heal, but you must remember that it will take time.

Also Hannah arrives to D.C. (Booth/Hannah pairing).

* * *

 

Wednesday arrived that week with a different squintern, Dr. Clark Edison, and a double homicide. Booth wasn’t particularly pleased with either of those facts. He liked Clark, but he liked Wendell a lot more. And he and Brennan had yet to solve their argument so they were still more than a little tense around each other.

The tension was palpable to everyone, including the squints. They were all feeling it to the point that not even Angela had tried to get out of him the gossip she wanted during lunch on Monday. She had just apologized for underestimating him and not knowing what his job really was after all this time, something to which Hodgins had joined in with his own apology, and then they had asked about the job itself showing interest in what he did. He hadn’t been all that angry at them to begin with so their apology and interest had been more than enough to seal the wound. Brennan was a different matter, though. She had apologized for underestimating, quoting her, his position in the hierarchy of the FBI, and he had forgiven her too. But the problem with Brennan was that the wounds were a lot deeper than that. This was a surface wound, a scratch, one of many. The real wound laid beneath those and it had nothing to do with all those times they had hurt each other a little, cutting each other’s skin and leaving those scratches over the years. No, the real one was created by a simple fact that came to Booth’s attention almost a year ago when she rejected him, and it grew deeper and wider with every step she took running away from him. It came from the realization that even if she trusted him with her life, she didn’t trust him with her heart.

All the hurt turned into anger and with it a lot of issues were surfacing, and his patience with her was MIA. To that you had to add Brennan’s mood swings: one moment she was normal and the next she was verbally attacking him, one minute she was the rational scientist and the next he felt like he was arguing with a jealous ex. So many emotions mixed together were building the tension between them up to dangerous levels. They were professionals and they were keeping up with the job like adults but that didn’t make the people around them immune to those dark feelings. Sooner or later someone was going to start asking questions, and he was reasonably sure it was going to be certain artist.

The first indicator that Angela had held her questions and her opinion for as long as she could was the pointed look she gave Hodgins when Booth offered to take him to the crime scene so he could gather his own samples too. Under such a murderous glare, the Bug Man had rejected the offer with a lame “Dr. B can do it.”

He couldn’t know what the intentions of the artist were. She could be angry at him for moving on or she could have hope that the partners would find a way to reconcile with each other and mend their relationship. Yet he wasn’t going to get into an argument with Angela, even if he suspected that the former prompted the glare.

However, if Angela’s intention was to give the partners privacy to repair their friendship, it didn’t work. Far from it, in the short walk from the spot where he parked his SUV to the cave where the victims were found they managed to get into another of those veiled arguments now so common between them.

Just like the conversation slash argument they had soon after they came back about the consequences of their trips, especially her trip, for which she claimed being the linchpin of the group. Then she had still debated between staying and going back to Maluku and it had ended with him telling her that it wasn’t easy to be the linchpin of the group in a tone that showed he was upset with her.

On this occasion, she had decided to question his feelings for Hannah because he hadn’t brought her with him. He had actively ignored her or answered her remarks with sarcastic comments, right up until she asked, “How could you be so sure you love Hannah if you could leave her in Afghanistan?”

They had been back at the car, loading her equipment back into the truck and his answer this time had been more forceful and his actions had made it clear he wasn’t happy with her attitude. “I left her there ‘cause I ran out of room in my duffle bag. Now get in the car. You wanted lunch at the diner and I have a ton of things to do.”

They didn’t say a word during the drive back. Whether it was the silence, his words or his actions she understood she had crossed some kind of line, because when they went back to the topic during lunch, she apologized for bringing it up. He accepted her apology by explaining his reasoning for leaving her in Afghanistan. Hannah was happy with the action, he wanted to return, and he respected her desire and need to stay.

Seconds later he saw Hannah crossing the street and walking inside the diner. They kissed, and she told him that she had requested a transfer to the Washington Press Corps to be with him. He had been on cloud nine since then, even with the very awkward introduction of the women to each other.

“Hello. I’m Temperance Brennan.” She interrupted the couple’s kiss.

“Ah, I’ve heard a lot about you. Hannah Burley,” without leaving Booth’s embrace she introduced herself and the women shook hands.

“I assumed.” The anthropologist was obviously feeling like the third wheel in the lover’s encounter, and making Booth feel observed during what he perceived as a private moment. The situation was terrible, awkward, and uncomfortable for everyone.

Hannah was still in Booth’s arms, when she remembered something important. “How are your ribs, Seeley? Feeling better, I suppose?”

“Yeah, almost perfect,” the agent answered still feeling uncomfortable and looking alternatively to both women. From Brennan’s face he could predict that this would lead to more problems.

“Almost perfect is not perfect, Booth. Should you be working? Should you have gone hiking for the remains?”

“I’m fine, Bones. I’ve been cleared by the FBI doctor and I’ve passed my physicals. I’m perfectly capable of going for a half an hour hike,” Booth answered exasperated. She hadn’t bothered contacting him while he was in Afghanistan and now she was worried about a thirty minutes hike with sore ribs.

Thankfully the conversation ended there as they needed to return to work. So Booth drove Brennan to the Jeffersonian, and then returned to the Hoover with Hannah in his arms. They still needed some extra minutes together. They wanted to enjoy their closeness a little longer. Sadly, soon after, she was gone.

Booth then had the opportunity to talk with Ranger Gary Nesbitt who brought a suspect’s file for him. But his secretary’s return from her lunch prevented him from reading it at the moment.

She told him it was time for the last of the three candidates’ interviews. After it he would have to choose one of the three for the position of secondary liaison with the Jeffersonian. He picked out three junior agents from a big pile of files Cullen gave him: Shaw, Frost, and Davis. So far he had interviewed Frost and Davis on Monday afternoon, and discarded Frost for being too arrogant. So he had to decide between Davis and Shaw, and Shaw’s interview was going to be now because a case had delayed it.

Genevieve Shaw had two degrees: one in criminal justice, and another one in psychology; she had been the second one of her promotion in Quantico, just behind Frost, and she had been a year working in the bureau with very good results. Plus, she came from a working class family and her father was a fireman, so he expected her to know how the world worked, and if that wasn’t enough, she had a baby, a little boy of only two with no known father. She was a single mom with a great file which in Booth’s book said a lot about her character. In fact, she had been his first option when he saw the files, followed by Davis and finally Frost. Even if Davis had been behind the other two in academic knowledge his record in the bureau was better than Frost’s, and Booth valued more the field than the books.

Evelyn knocked on his door to remind him of the interview and inform him that Shaw was ready for it. “Sir, Agent Shaw is here for her interview. And Dr. Sweets came while you were at the crime scene. He gave me a schedule with five sessions for your reactivation review, sir.”

“The first one is tomorrow morning, right?” Booth asked her and Evelyn nodded. “Good. Call him and confirm that one, reject anyone that is out of office time or affects my meetings with my lawyer or Rebecca, and tell him that the rest will be confirmed in due time.”

“Yes, sir. Parker and murder trump the shrink,” Evelyn nodded her understanding and was rewarded with a smile.

“Thanks, Evelyn. Let Shaw in,” he told her, still smiling at his very efficient secretary. “And don’t call me sir.”

“Sir,” Agent Shaw greeted him entering his office all serious and business like. Booth couldn’t avoid noticing that she seemed nervous but also excited at the prospect of working with him or the Jeffersonian or both.

“Come in, Shaw; close the door and sit down. I’ve read your file and your supervisor gave you very good recommendations. John talks highly of you… so I just want to know you a little better; ask you some questions, okay?” he explained trying to get her a little more relaxed.

All in all, it was a pretty good interview. She was a little intimidated by him, but considering that he was numerous steps over her position it was understandable. It was obvious that she had studied the cases he had worked with the Jeffersonian, and seemed to know quite a bit about the squints; she had prepared for the job as best as she could with the files available to her. She was dedicated and her enthusiasm decided things for him.

“Well, Shaw, you’re in,” Booth told the young agent who smiled brightly at the good news. “You’ll do some desk work during this case and once it’s solved, I’ll introduce you to the squints and you’ll start going out into the field with me.”

“Thank you, sir. I’d be honored to work with you, sir,” Shaw answered smiling, notably pleased to get the job.

“Evelyn will show you to your desk and give you anything you need tomorrow morning. Now go home,” Booth ordered and stood up to open the door for her. “And, Shaw, call me Booth, please.”

After another “yes, sir” she left the office feeling really proud of herself.

Booth told Evelyn that Agent Shaw was staying and starting tomorrow morning so she probably would need her help to get a handle of the department; Evelyn had been surprisingly fast in doing so. Finally, he ordered her to call Cullen to inform him of it and then go home; he was leaving for the day too.

And he did so, smiling happily thinking about the woman waiting for him at home. He would never have guessed that Hannah was going to follow him to D.C. and leave behind the action she loved so much. He had expected their relationship to die due to distance and he could admit he had doubted the strength of her feelings for him.

Maybe he had been wrong. They had some pending issues to be tangled, but at least now he felt more optimistic about their relationship. He could enjoy what they have at the moment, and after the case was solved, he would take her out for dinner and talk to her about those important issues, which basically meant Parker. He would proceed from there, and they would make decisions then. She deserved to know what she was getting into and have the opportunity to decide if she really wanted it; and he deserved and needed to know where she stood in certain matters before getting any deeper into it than he was. But until then, he was just going to think about the fact that she had chosen him over the job she loved so much and enjoy their romance.

He would have to wait and see what the future brought them. Maybe they could make it, maybe his love wasn’t unrequited this time, and they could feed it, cherish it, and make it grow. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure of it, but he had hope, and for now hope was enough to put a smile on his face.

* * *

 

At the lab, the bodies arrived soon after Brennan came back from lunch with Booth. While the bodies were being prepared for the examination, she informed them of the arrival of Hannah.

Brennan talking about Booth and his new relationship with the reporter gave Angela the opening she had been waiting for since their return. At first, Brennan had ignored Angela and rejected any attempt she made to talk about it and she had let her be. But after the incident in the Hoover on Monday, Angela became more than curious about the issues between the partners, and the increasing tension that now surrounded them hadn’t help matters. Angela was starting to worry that Booth maybe was really moving on from Brennan which would leave her friend Booth-less and in her opinion love-less. She was really worried about Brennan and her happiness, but to help her she needed information. Fortunately, she was a master in getting information, especially the juicy and romantic kind. She wasn’t the gossip queen of the Jeffersonian for no reason.

But Cam beat her to it. “So, what was it like to meet Hannah?”

“Oh, she seems... very pleasant … and ... attractive. Her face fits comfortably within the golden ratio,” Brennan answered in her matter-of-fact voice, as if she had no feelings in the matter.

“So you guys did math together?” Hodgins said, sharing a knowing look with Angela. He also thought that Brennan was feeling jealous and probably hurt too but that she refused to admit it to them and probably to herself too.

“No, the golden ratio is a formula that determines beauty,” Brennan corrected in her lecture voice, the same she used when teaching her students. “One to 1.618. For instance, the width of the mouth to the width of the cheek...”

“So, she's hot,” Angela cut her off. She didn’t want her friend to launch into a long explanation of the human body proportions that were considered desirable and the anthropological reason behind it. She wanted to talk about feelings, not to help her rationalize them.

Clark chose that moment to interrupt her interrogation by bringing up the case again. “I see some, uh, particulates here, Dr. Hodgins. You know if we still care about finding out what happened to these poor people.”

But Angela was not to be deterred, and pressed the issue. “I just assumed that when you guys got back from your trip, you'd be a real couple.”

Hearing those words coming from the artist, Cam snorted in disbelief and shook her head for emphasis. Did the woman know anything about real relationships and life? Did she really expected Booth to keep waiting for Brennan to stop running the rest of his life? Did she think this last running away episode would make the guy feel loved instead of rejected?

Angela noticed the actions of the coroner and decided that she was the person with the information she needed. If she wanted to know the whole truth and understand what the hell happened to bring this on she would need to talk with Cam. She didn’t understand why Cam found her comment so stupid but she would get her answers later when she could talk with the coroner in private.

“We were never a couple,” argued Brennan.

“Dr. Saroyan, you assured me that you would try to keep this workplace professional,” Clark said trying to bring them back to the case.

“And I will, Dr. Edison,” Cam assured the annoyingly professional squintern of the week.

“No, no, no. You were a couple. You just weren't having sex.” And again, Angela refused to be diverted from the topic she wanted to discuss. “Were you jealous?”

“Of course not. I'm happy for Booth. Why would I be jealous?” Brennan answered with her best clueless voice and act.

“Because it's obvious you and Agent Booth were attracted to each other. I mean, a blind man could see that.  I just couldn't understand why you two just didn't rip each other's clothes off. I mean, just get all butt-naked and...” Clark suddenly snapped unable to keep the very obvious answer for himself. “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. Uh... I'm… I'm sorry… Uh, I... It just popped out, okay? You guys weren't focusing.”

They were all very amused with Clark’s outburst but the only one capable of saying something and not burst out laughing was Hodgins. “Dude, a little self-control?”

* * *

 

It wasn’t until the end of the day that Angela finally got the opportunity to corner Cam and ask the questions she had about Booth and his new relationship.

“Can we talk a moment, Cam?” Angela asked the coroner entering in the autopsy room and closing the door behind her to guarantee their privacy.

Cam studied the artist for a moment. She was positive that Angela wanted to talk about what she perceived to be a love triangle. She was tempted to just say no and dismiss her and what she was sure was going to be the initial stages of a campaign in favor of Brennan and against Hannah. But the genuine concern in her eyes changed her mind, and she nodded and pointed to the other chair in her office.

Angela sat down and started to speak. “So, what happened? After that goodbye in the airport I really thought they would come back to be together. Something happened and you know what… and I’m really worried about Bren so please explain to me why it is that them being together seems so stupid to you.”

“Okay, I’ll explain what I know, but I won’t break Booth’s confidence, got it?” Cam told the artist using her boss’ voice to get the point across. Angela nodded accepting the compromise and Cam continued. “What do you know about the whole going to Maluku and Afghanistan thing they pulled on us?”

“Well, something had been wrong for a while… I thought Booth was angry because Bren was dating his boss and Bren was jealous of Dr. Bryar… but at the same time, I felt that there was something else,” Angela answered, “and now it’s painfully obvious something did happen.”

Cam nodded sharply and after some silent seconds she finally answered Angela’s question. “She rejected him. He wanted to move forward with their relationship and she rejected him.”

“He really did finally ask her for a relationship, an honest to God relationship and she said no,” Angela processed the information out loud. “When did that happen? And please tell me that it wasn’t before she started dating Hacker the second time around… Booth was angry about it the first time… I explained to her how wrong and stupid it was to date Hacker the first time and then, the second time, I reminded her that it was a very bad idea and told her not to do it.”

“It was just days before Brennan’s high school reunion,” Cam answered, letting her annoyance with the anthropologist show. As an anthropologist it was impossible, simply impossible for Brennan to be ignorant of the fact that dating a guy’s boss just after the guy declared his feelings for her, was humiliating and a very low blow for said guy.

“You think that she did it on purpose!” Angela exclaimed wanting to defend her friend, but at the same time she wasn’t very forceful, probably because a part of her was in agreement with the coroner.

“C’mon, Angela, if she didn’t know dating Hacker was like kicking Booth in the nuts, then she should return her anthropology degree!” Cam exploded letting the other woman see her anger. But she then took a deep, calming breath and continued talking. “Look, she didn’t want to be involved in a serious and real relationship, and that was her prerogative. And she obviously needed to distance herself emotionally from Booth, just like Booth needed that distance too, and that is respectable too. But the way she chose to do it, dating Hacker… that was plain and simply wrong, at least in my book.”

Angela nodded, agreeing with the coroner. “Things changed when she rejected him. There was a small distance between them, and she didn’t like those changes or the distance. But she needed the distance to compartmentalize her feelings for Booth and break the connection, so she forced it by dating Hacker. And she trapped herself in there: there wasn’t enough distance to do so, but there was too much for her liking; she felt alone and couldn’t cope with Taffet’s trial and her fear over Booth’s safety, not with the amount of distance between them, but she was still too close to him to compartmentalize her feelings. In the end, it was all too much, and she ran away to Maluku hoping it would allow her to compartmentalize everything.”

“You’re probably right,” Cam told her honestly. She really believed the artist was correct with her assessment of the situation but suspected Angela was going to find a way to make it into an argument in favor of getting the partners together.

“But that means that she loved him too much to compartmentalize him,” the artist said making good of Cam’s prediction, “Booth should have known that and done something about it.”

“Yet she didn’t love him enough to fight her fears for him,” Cam said sharply. She was not in the mood to deal with Angela’s Hollywood way of seeing love, relationships and life. “There’s only so long you can run away from someone and hurt him in the process, because it’s impossible to not hurt that person while you’re at it, before said person just stops running after you. You stopped running in time. She didn’t. Plain and simple, Angela,” the coroner said a little frustrated with the artist.

Angela felt chastised by her boss and friend, but she had to acknowledge the truth of her statement. Still she couldn’t let the argument go yet, if only for Brennan’s sake she had to try one more thing. “But are you sure that he has moved on because only seven months seem too soon to me.”

“You mean to say seven months in the middle of a war zone seeing people die, and by people I mean civilians of all kind, kids included; his comrades; his subordinates; his friends: seeing them die or get injured, risking his own life, every single day… that’s _only_ and _too soon_ for you. She didn’t contact him in all that time, didn’t even answer his emails, didn’t support him in the sightless when he was out there, yet you define that time as _only_ and _too soon_. I guess seven months in a five stars hotel in the middle of Paris is a short time,” Cam answered angrily. She really couldn’t stand more of this argument. “Let me get this straight now so that we can stop this bullshit,” Cam said standing up and walking to the door of her office ready to close the argument.

“Booth is no longer in love with Brennan. He will always love her in some way, like he will love Rebecca, but he’s no longer in love with either of them. He opened himself to Brennan and she abandoned him, he’s not making that mistake again,” she continued and used her perfectly manicured fingers to count her statements. “She dug her own grave and if she doesn’t like it it’s her problem; and Booth deserves to be happy with whoever he pleases. You don’t get a vote. So leave it alone.”

That said, she opened her door and motioned Angela to precede her out of the office. She finally closed the door hoping that it would be the end of her conversation with the artist.

“You’re right,” Angela said, clearly ashamed of her comment. “Dismissing his time there or his feelings like that was inconsiderate and cruel,” she continued. “He’s my friend too and I want him happy, and if he has really moved on and is happy, I’ll support him.”

“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to the guy that doesn’t come here more than needed because he’s sure he wouldn’t be welcome… at least not by you and by extension your husband,” the coroner told her.

Angela nodded, smiling sadly at her boss. “I will, tomorrow, promise. I’m just sad for Bren.”

Cam understood the other woman. She was worried about her friend, which considering Doctor Brennan’s personality was perfectly reasonable. The woman was her worst enemy when it came to finding her own happiness. And there was nothing they could do for her; Angela couldn’t help her to find happiness. Sad as it was, Brennan was on her own on this one.

So Cam looked sympathetically at the artist and said one last thing before leaving the lab for the night. “I’m sad for her too, but it’s her life to live, Angela.”


	6. The couple in the cave and the squints in the love-lab

**Chapter 5:**

**The couple in the cave and the squints in the love-lab**

**Timeline:** October, 2010; Second week upon the team's return to D.C.

 **Season/episode:** 6x02- “The Couple in the Cave”

**Note/warnings:** In this chapter you will see some tension between Booth and Brennan. Their friendship will heal, but you must remember that it will take time.

Also Hannah is in D.C. (Booth/Hannah pairing).

* * *

 

The next morning, Angela went straight to Cam’s office. The previous night she had a long conversation about a long list of recent events with Hodgins and she had reached some conclusions. One of them being that she didn’t owe an apology only to Booth. She, or better yet, they both owned an apology to Cam.

“Can I come in, Cam?” she asked her boss who was currently doing some paperwork at her desk. Cam nodded and Angela entered the office, closed the door, and sat down in the other chair just like the night before.

“I’ll leave early today, or maybe take a long lunch, or… I’ll go to the Hoover to talk to Booth later so… just wanted to let you know I’ll be leaving the lab at some point today to do just that,” Angela informed her boss and Cam nodded giving her permission to the artist. She even smiled at her to show her approval. “I’ve been thinking last night and I came to the conclusion that Hodgins and I own you an apology, Cam. We needed a break, but we could have taken a month or two, even three… you know a long vacation. We didn’t need a yearlong sabbatical. If we had stopped to think about it for more than a second we would have known the repercussions it would have on the lab and the people here. You were going to have a hard time already and we made it harder,” the artist said honestly.

“Apology accepted,” Cam said with a smile.

“Good, but we thought dinner would be a good peace offering… so this Friday the four of us… double date, ok? I’m dying to meet Paul,” Angela said with a smile.

“Sounds good, but it’ll have to be Saturday, Paul and I are having dinner with Booth on Friday,” Cam answered.

“Maybe we could make it a triple date,” Angela suggested and Cam smiled at her approvingly. “Okay, I’ll tell him when I talk to him today.”

Angela stood up and walked to the door; it finally looked like she was going to leave but she stopped short and turned around to face the other woman. “I’m a little worried about Booth… uhm… Hannah seems nice but…”

“A nomad,” Cam finished the sentence for her, “that’s what Booth calls it. He knows and he’s going to talk to her after this case is solved, before he gets into it too deep.”

Angela signed relieved. “Good… So who is Alex Foster? I saw his smile. So is she blond and leggy, or brunette…a lawyer maybe?” she asked, changing her attitude completely and going straight to the gossip she loved so much.

“Ask him yourself,” Cam answered with a knowing smile.

“That good?” Angela asked smirking really interested in that piece of gossip.

“I’d bet with a pair of my Manolo’s that he’ll be dating her in less than a month,” the coroner answered.

Angela squealed a little, happy for the agent, and then left the office ready to work.

* * *

 

After a very long Wednesday in which the new case, the tension between Brennan and him, and Sweet’s trying to give him advice about his relationship with Hannah had stressed him, Booth went home feeling happy and hopeful due to Hannah’s presence in his life.

His calmness was very short lived, though. To a long and stressful Wednesday followed an equally long, stressful, and frustrating Thursday.

It started with his first session with Sweets for his reinstatement evaluation. Then, the shrink annoyed the hell out of him during the ride to talk to Winston Hinkle, a suspect with a mental illness who was released from prison shortly before the murder. Hannah called him and Sweets used the opportunity to get his nose into his business. So Booth told him to back off, that he was over Brennan, and he no longer wanted to share his life with her, and that he loved Hannah.

Sadly, the day didn’t end there. After their visit to Hinkle, Brennan, Hannah and Booth had lunch at the Founding Fathers, resulting in a very awkward conversation about Afghan insurgents and fig trees.

And if that wasn’t enough, while the squints did their squinting that afternoon, he was buried in paperwork and a meeting with Cullen who wanted to know more about his choice for the secondary liaison with the Jeffersonian.

When he finally arrived home, he was tired, stressed, and annoyed, and Hannah was not there because she had to work during the night. The only positive thing of the day was that while he was with Cullen he avoided Angela, who surely had visited to grill him about Hannah and blame him for global warming.

The worst part was Friday didn’t start any better.

His day started with a meeting with Hacker, something that always made him angry. The guy was, in his opinion, a paper pushing bureaucrat with no field experience whatsoever, a politician hidden in an FBI suit. And he was way too feminine, and his mannerisms extremely annoyed him, especially when he was already stressed.

After his meeting with Hacker, he was too annoyed to work so he decided on an early lunch and with his bad luck Sweets and Brennan joined him in the diner.

Things got even worse when Sweets and Brennan decided that it was impossible for the two victims to be in love because they came from different backgrounds. He agreed with them in one thing: they needed something in common. It was difficult for them to meet, but once they met, falling in love or not had nothing to do with their backgrounds. Not that they wanted to listen to his opinion. Brennan decided he just has a stupid belief in the power of love and proceeded to explain why the victims, like them, were anthropological anomalies; dismissing both the love between the victims and his feelings for her in one move. But it wasn’t enough, no; she had to say that they weren’t able to solve their differences and insinuate that said differences were the reason for them not being involved. After that, he just had enough. He told her the reason they didn’t solve their differences was because she didn’t even wanted to try. Then, he paid his bill and left.

Fortunately for him, his very short lunch left him with time to meet Hannah for some fun in the middle of the day. Everyone knows sex is the best way to relax and blow off steam, followed by hitting the bag or someone else.

Feeling more relaxed, or at least less stressed, he went to AA to find the identity of the male victim. Then, he had Shaw investigate his girlfriend, Lupe Rojas, and he interviewed her. But he did it alone. He just wasn’t in the mood to deal with Brennan. He was no longer stressed but he was by no means relaxed enough for that.

By the time he finally met the squints that afternoon, they already knew the couple wasn’t beaten to death, but they fell or were pushed off a cliff. They knew where it happened and, even that Lupe’s car had been in the park near the area where Felix and Hillary died. They were ready to conduct an experiment with Lupe; her allergies were her alibi so they needed to corroborate that she indeed had allergies.

Only a short while later, Lupe’s allergies scratched her out of the suspects list and Cam informed him that Felix was attacked with pepper spray, the strong kind issued to the forest Rangers.

Booth called Shaw and had her check Ranger Nesbitt again to find a connection, and then decided to wait for her call in the lab’s lounge having a cup of coffee.

Angela chose that moment to approach him. “Booth, can we talk?”

“Depends. Are you going to blame me for global warming?” he asked curtly.

“No, in fact I’d like to apologize to you,” Angela answered surprising the agent, who let it show and gave her a questioning look. “I wasn’t fair to you. I was hostile to you because I felt that you left Bren behind by moving on, but Cam set me straight, believe me. And don’t worry, she didn’t break your confidence, just gave me the headlines.”

“It’s ok, Angela, she’s your friend. You worry about her,” Booth said accepting her apology.

“You’re my friend too, Booth, and I dismissed and underestimated your feelings in favor of hers. I shouldn’t have done it, and I don’t want you to feel unwelcome here because of me,” she kept going.

“Apology accepted, Angela,” he answered, smiling brightly at her. He only wanted to know that they understood and respected his decisions, and that he was still welcome in their circle.

“Still, Hodgins and I are going to treat Cam and Paul to dinner tonight, and we thought maybe Hannah and you would like to come too. Our treat, of course,” Angela told him. It was obviously a peace offering and he accepted with a smile, happy to know the Hodgins’ still considered him a friend.

“That done, think you have five more minutes before your phone rings to tell me about Alex Foster?” she asked in a suggestive voice. “Cam is betting a pair of Manolo’s… those are…”

“Shoes,” Booth finished for her.

“How do you know that?” Angela asked astonished. “A tough guy like you doesn’t know about those things.”

“Cam loves shoes… expensive shoes… I guessed,” he admitted and was thankfully saved from answering the artist by his phone.

On the other end of the line was Shaw who told him that Ranger Nesbitt’s niece was the underage driver who died when Felix gave her alcohol. And Angela seeing him busy talking on the phone, left him to his job and went to find Brennan to invite her to dinner too.

After his brief conversation with Agent Shaw, he went to find Brennan so that they could both go to arrest the Ranger. He found her talking with Angela so he waited a few seconds, and when the artist left the office looking slightly upset he correctly guessed that Brennan had rejected her offer to join them for dinner. Still he decided to say nothing and not get involved, and just motioned Brennan to follow him.

The partners arrived to the park a short while later and Nesbitt confessed with very little prompting. So with the murderer arrested and in custody at the Hoover, Booth and Brennan went for a post-case drink before his dinner date with the other two couples.

The celebration was friendly but still tense and awkward due to the unresolved arguments that were piling up and threatened to bury them.

Brennan didn’t understand why Felix didn’t leave Hillary, and when Booth tried to explain it, they ended again in one of those arguments about the existence or not of love. Booth didn’t have any more patience left after the long week and so many years of arguing the same thing to keep doing it, so he told her that he was going to explain to her how he saw love and then the discussion would be closed. She could agree or disagree with him, but he wasn’t going to have this debate again.

“Love and relationships are like potted plants,” he started talking. “Don’t interrupt me, Bones. I’m trying to make an analogy, a metaphor or whatever it’s called,” he said raising his hand to stop her from arguing. He could see that she was more than ready to question him; to tell him that there was no way to compare plants with brain chemistry. “As I was saying, imagine you have a potted plant, okay? But it’s a special kind, it only grows if two people take care of it, if one or both of them ignore the plant, and don’t water it or renew the soil… if they don’t care for the plant together it dies. But if they do, if they take care of it together, then it grows and even gives flowers. Well, the plant is the love, and the flowers are the relationship, and as long as you ignore the plant and refuse to care for it, all your relationships will be fleeting and love would seem ephemeral to you. Like us, you didn’t want our relationship to flourish so you hid the plant in a closet, I couldn’t take care of it on my own, and it eventually died,” he told her with finality, convinced of the veracity of his words. “Love is not ephemeral, Bones, unless you force it to be. It is delicate and it needs to be cherished.”

He then stood up seeing Hannah entering the bar, and the couple left to meet with the other two couples for dinner.

* * *

 

When Hannah and Booth arrived to the restaurant, an expensive looking Italian, Cam, Paul and the Hodgins’ were already there. But having just arrived and seeing the last couple entering the restaurant, Hodgins told the waitress to wait on their drink orders a moment to give to the newcomers some time to decide.

The couple sat down and took the menus. Something off it caught Booth’s attention, and he let the others know. “Vegetarian menu, vegan menu… this is an Italian restaurant… where’s the normal people menu?”

Angela laughed softly at him, and the others grinned amused with his attitude. “I invited Bren too, but she wouldn’t come, said she had a lot of work to do. This place offers different menus for different diets, but don’t worry the normal one, as you called it, is the last one… I think that the owner agrees with you. They call it menu only,” Angela explained smiling at the agent.

“A wise guy,” Booth told her smirking, and the other two guys agreed with him wholeheartedly.

“Guys and meat, you can’t really separate them, right?” joked Angela.

“Well, if I have to choose between Booth’s lasagna and a salad, I choose the lasagna, no questions asked,” Cam argued.

“Seeley cooks?” Hannah asked surprised, “with the amount of take-out we’ve eaten this week I assumed that he didn’t know how.”

“Booth is a really good cook, but this has been a stressful week for him, so he probably wasn’t in the mood,” the coroner told her, and Booth blushed at the compliment.

“Oh, you should cook for me,” Hannah said in a suggestive voice.

Angela couldn’t resist joining in and spoke with her flirty voice. “Yes, he should, a hot guy like him cooking… exquisite.”

Booth blushed furiously, hung his head down, and even groaned in embarrassment at Angela’s comment, and the rest burst out laughing at him. Well, except for Hodgins, who whined miserably. “Hey, your husband is over here, at this table and by your side.” Fortunately for both of them, they were saved, Booth from further embarrassment and Hodgins from his wife’s wrath, by the waitress who chose that moment to take their orders.

When the waitress finally went on her merry way, everyone minus Angela had their glasses full of wine. Obviously, this got everyone’s attention and they stared at her in surprise, very happy surprise, except for Hodgins who looked at her with that stupidly happy grin he had been sporting since she discovered her pregnancy.

When Angela nodded confirming their suspicions, Booth stood up to hug the artist and shake Hodgins’ hand congratulating them. While the others congratulated the couple, Hannah also studied Booth carefully. She got the nagging suspicion that kids and having more kids of his own was one of those things he wanted to talk about during their dinner tomorrow before they got into it more deeply. She suspected he wasn’t going to like her answer.

After the congratulations were done with, Booth got a little package from one of the pockets of his jacket. “I landed in Berlin with a military plane, but I got to take a civilian one from there to D.C. so I ended up wandering around the airport for more than an hour. I found this… Don’t ask what it was doing in Berlin, but I saw it and I thought it would come in handy at some point. I was thinking in hinting something today, maybe tease you a little… you know, _you spent seven months in Paris and didn’t think of bringing a baby_ ,” he explained, saying the last part with a funny voice. “But I guess my plans are a little useless now.” He finally gave the package to Angela.

Angela opened the gift and found one of those plastic chains designed to tie the baby’s pacifier to the onesies, the safety pin had a tiny Eiffel Towel on it. “Oh, Booth, it’s beautiful. Thank you,” the artist said and stood up to hug the agent again.

“Yeah, thanks man, this is really cool, our first baby thing,” Hodgins told the agent with a huge smile.

“You’re welcome. I’m glad you like it,” Booth answered. “Just don’t buy too many baby things. Keep it simple, guys. You only need some basic things. The rest you won’t use, and the simpler they are the better. If something is too complicated, you’d probably hate it in a week.”

“Listen to the wise,” Paul told them, “most of the first time moms buy these cool, magic carriers that are supposed to be the latest model and the best carrier ever, but they end up using ones that look exactly like the ones our mothers used for us, just more colorful… it’s gotta be for something.”

“Because you need things that are practical, and those carriers aren’t. Believe me, Rebecca bought one of those. I used it one day and then got a simple one. She asked for mine less than a week later,” Booth explained.

That was the moment the waitress chose to bring their orders, effectively interrupting their conversation and allowing Cam to bring up something she had been meaning to ask for almost a week now.

“Booth, do you know anything about my study about brain damage not being stonewalled anymore?” the coroner asked her friend. Soon after the return of the team, Booth asked her for a copy of her article and all her documentation to look at, and soon after she received a call from a medical magazine wanting to publish it and from CNB to repeat the interview, this time really talking about her article. Since then she had suspected that Booth had done something, maybe pulled some strings, but due to the cases and the changes in his life she had yet to ask him.

“I may have talked about it over breakfast with Jack,” Booth told her sheepishly. “He liked it; thought it was good and had a lot of merit.”

“Wait, Dude, you talk with your friend Jack, and suddenly Cam is no longer stonewalled… what the hell? Who is your friend? Does he own a TV studio, a paper? Is he a politician? I’m smelling conspiracy here, man,” Hodgins jumped immediately to it.

“Jack, there’s no conspiracy. He pulled a string,” Angela told him smirking at his antics.

“And he’s not anything you said, Hodgins. Jack is an old friend of Booth’s from his time in the military. He’s a general,” Cam answered him. “He works at the Pentagon now, right Booth?”

Booth nodded confirming Cam’s statement and the rest looked at him shocked. “Wait, you know a general in the Pentagon?” Hodgins asked, still wearing his I’m-smelling-a-conspiracy face.

“How the hell do you think I got to go AWOL to see Bones at the airport without repercussions or how I got a special contract so I could leave the Army and come back if the FBI called me? Cullen pushed for it, but it probably wouldn’t have been approved if Jack wouldn’t have talked to Colonel Pelant,” Booth answered.

“Wow, you know a guy in the Pentagon worried enough about brain damage in veterans to push to get her article published… I have to meet and interview him,” Hannah said excited about the idea.

“No, Jack’s my friend; not someone for you to interview,” Booth told her simply and with finality.

Hannah’s face fell and she nodded feeling chastised. Seeing this, the agent decided to lighten the mood a little. “Plus he won’t really answer your questions anyway.”

“You sure? I can be very persuasive,” she said suggestively. “A guy like him can’t have a lot of fun, if you get my drift, and a beautiful woman paying him attention could get a lot of answers.”

“Sorry, baby, but Jack’s happily married, and I’m sure that he thinks that you have nothing on his wife,” Booth told her smiling, yet his face was telling her to let it go. Hannah finally got the message and let the idea of interviewing Jack go.

“Anyway, how is Michelle doing, Cam?” Booth asked, effectively diverting the conversation to something else.

The rest of the night was very pleasant. The three couples ate, talked, laughed, and then talked some more before it got too late for everyone and they decided to leave. They all parted ways relaxed and happy after an enjoyable evening with friends.

Hannah and Booth went to Booth’s apartment for the night. They needed to enjoy the night as much as possible because Booth had the first meeting with the mediator about Parker in the morning. Hannah would leave for work soon after him that morning too and they had agreed to talk during dinner. After that no one knew what was going to happen so they both wanted to savor their relationship now.

* * *

 

Booth, Rebecca, their lawyers, and the mediator met early Saturday morning in Julia Garcia’s office to negotiate the custody agreement.

The mediator, Miss Baker, was the first to talk. “Good morning to everyone, I’m Stephanie Baker, the mediator appointed by the court for this. I’m sure we all know how this works, but in case there are doubts, I’m going to explain it. We will negotiate as long as you need to reach an agreement, but if you’re unable to do so you could decide to go to court. In that case, I will give a recommendation to the judge based on what I see here.”

Julia gave a copy of the first contract to Rebecca’s lawyer. “This is our offer, Miss Stinson, Mr. Moore. It stabilizes half custody for each parent and equal rights over Parker, and of course the prohibition of any of the parents to take Parker out of the state/country for more than a month without authorization. This means neither of you would be allowed to move out of the state/country and take Parker with you. If either of you decided to move out of the state/country, he or she would have to do it without Parker. You would revert then to primary and secondary custodies, being the secondary the one leaving the state. Your rights in that case are specified there too. Miss Baker has already read it, so I suggest you read it carefully too. We can take a recess for that effect if you want,” Julia said in a firm and business like way.

“You want half custody?” Rebecca asked in astonishment, “you really plan on taking care of Parker half of the time with your job?”

“Yes, Rebecca, I do. In fact I’ve already talked to Cullen about it, and changes have been made to allow me to do it,” Booth answered confidently. He was doing everything he had to do to be able to share Parker’s custody equally with her. “You work long hours too, and you have a babysitter and he’s involved in various afternoon activities. It’s pretty logical that if you can do it, then I can too. I just want to share 50/50 the responsibilities and the happiness that comes with him. I see nothing wrong there.”

“What if you decide to go back to the Army again? Or if they promote you and transfer you to some other place?” Rebecca asked annoyed with her ex-boyfriend.

“I’m not going back to the Army, but even if I went you would become the primary custodian until I come back, then we would go back to what this contract says. Same goes for transfers for either of us. If you or I get transferred out of the state, unless we change the agreement, the one staying here gets Parker’s primary custody and the other one secondary: you know, every other weekend, vacations… But it’s a moot point, Rebecca. I’m not leaving. It won’t be the first time I reject a promotion out of the state to stay with Parker,” Booth answered calmly.

“And what about Hannah, eh? Does she want a kid half of the time with you?” Rebecca asked heatedly.

“If she has a problem with me being a father then my relationship with her has no future.”

“You mean that if she isn’t happy with this agreement, you’ll break up with her?” she asked stunned.

“Yes, in fact I plan to talk with her about this tonight. Of course I plan on giving her some time to think about it, but I suppose I’ll get an answer soon enough,” he answered honestly.

“We’ll take a recess and my lawyer and I will read it, and then we’ll talk… but I’m making no promises,” Rebecca retorted, angry with Booth for changing the status quo, and stood up to leave the room with her lawyer when the mediator nodded.

“Look, Rebecca, I don’t wanna go to court, I don’t think it’ll do any favors to Parker, but I want this settled for everyone’s sake. We’re reasonable adults capable of putting our kid’s needs over us, and Parker needs both of us equally. This is a fair agreement for the three of us, and I’m willing to modify it in the future if the circumstances change, as long as it’s done for Parker’s benefit,” Booth told her standing up too and looking her in the eye.

Rebecca and her lawyer left the room without further delay and not one more word. It remained to be seen how reasonable she was going to be and how nasty the rest of the negotiation was going to be.


	7. The Parker Factor

**Chapter 6:**

**The Parker Factor**

**Timeline:** October, 2010; Second week (Saturday) upon the team's return to D.C.

 **Season/episode:** Post 6x02- “The Couple in the Cave”

**Note/warnings:** In this chapter you will see some tension between Booth and Brennan. Their friendship will heal, but you must remember that it will take time.

Also Hannah is in D.C. (Booth/Hannah pairing).

* * *

 

Once Rebecca left, the mediator left the room too, giving some privacy to the other party.

“What do you think, Julia?” Booth asked noticeably nervous.

“Well, Miss Baker is on your side and Moore knows it, so I’m guessing he’ll recommend her to accept the deal or negotiate to reduce the time you get with Parker but accept the rest,” she told him after some seconds of consideration. “But you expect her to fight,” Julia added, more a statement than a question. Booth nodded.

“Then relax and let me do the talking now,” she told him in a calming voice. She then stood up to bring him some coffee, and sat down in silence allowing her client to relax until the meeting restarted.

* * *

 

Rebecca and her lawyer left the room and were directed to an adjoining office so that they could discuss the contract in private. They read the contract carefully, and then she asked Mr. Moore what he thought about it.

“That depends. If he doesn’t want to go to court, he may be willing to negotiate and reduce the time he gets with Parker but he won’t back down on the other exigencies. If he does decide to go to court he probably would get half custody. Garcia is the best… and Miss Baker is on his side too, and if she’s here then the case would go to Judge White and he always listens to her… the odds are that he’ll get the half custody he’s asking for, maybe more depending on Baker’s opinion. My recommendation is either accept this deal or negotiate to change the 50/50 to 60/40 or something like that… get some more time for you, but do not let this get to the court,” he told her honestly.

Rebecca nodded and they returned to Garcia’s office to continue with the negotiations.

* * *

 

Soon after Rebecca, her lawyer, and the mediator were back in the room and the meeting could start again.

“The answer is no, Seeley, I’m not giving you half custody, I’m not giving you so much time with my son,” Rebecca said coldly.

“Our son, Rebecca, he is our son,” Booth corrected, looking heatedly at her.

“Booth, please, relax. Let me handle this,” Julia ordered him gently. Booth took a deep breath calming himself as much as he could, and nodded. He knew that he had to remain calm in front of the mediator to keep her on his side. The mediator could be the extra pressure he needed to get Rebecca to sign the contract.

“Miss Stinson, Parker Booth is Agent Booth’s son. That cannot be denied. He has rights as a father, and he won’t tolerate your constant violation of those rights. We are offering you a fair deal and the opportunity to do the right thing for Parker. I assure you the probabilities of getting this contract approved in a court are higher than you think,” Julia said calmly and convincingly. She needed Rebecca to believe that she couldn’t win here. She could accept the deal or she could negotiate but she couldn’t say no to everything.

“I don’t think so. He’s an FBI agent and he’s a man. No judge would give him half custody,” Rebecca retorted rudely.

“That may have been true in the past, Miss Stinson, but I assure you men get half custody and even full custody nowadays,” Julia answered still with her calm and soft manner.

“Still not signing it,” Rebecca said grimly, apparently not impressed by Julia’s words.

“May I ask why?” Miss Baker asked, looking at the woman questioningly. “I’ve been given a full report of Agent Booth’s life: his service record, both in the Army and the FBI; his current post in the FBI; I’ve been able to interview Deputy Director Cullen about his hours, job, etc.; I’ve been told about his past problems with gambling and he has given me full access to review his accounts, which I have gone over and found no problems for more than six years, and very small ones since his entrance in the Gamblers Anonymous program a week after Parker’s birth, which also prompted his change from the Army to the FBI. I see a man that has had problems in the past and has overcome them or made changes, big changes, for his son. So I find no reason to not give him half custody, in fact, were this go to court I would recommend Judge White to approve this contract. Taking into consideration your attitude I may have to recommend him to increase the amount of time with Parker given to him.”

“Rebecca, I strongly recommend you to accept the deal,” Moore told her. Moore knew Baker’s threats were never empty, and that Judge White approved whatever she suggested on virtually every occasion.

“Look, Becs, I get it, really, I do. You’re going to miss him when he’s with me, but do you think that I don’t miss him? How would you feel if you couldn’t see our son because I refused to let you?” Booth said, pleading with her. “Please, you know that this is the fair thing to do, and you know that I’m never going to stop you from seeing him on my days if you want to or calling him or something. So please, do the right thing.”

Rebecca looked at Booth carefully, studying him for some minutes. “Okay, Seeley,” she said nodding and smiling sadly. “You’re right. In your position I would have gone crazy. I haven’t been fair to you. I told you once that you’re a good father, yet I limit your time with him. I won’t like not having Parker all the time, but you’re right. This is the fair thing to do.”

Julia smiled at the other woman and passed the contract that was in the middle of the table and a pen to her so that she could sign it. That done Booth, who had expected  this to be a lot more difficult, signed too and then stood up to hug Rebecca and thank her.

“Thanks, Becs, really thank you,” he said while hugging her tightly and kissing her soundly on the cheek.

“You’re welcome, Seeley,” she answered, hugging him back. “But I plan on calling my kid every night when he’s with you.”

“Call twice.” Rebecca had never seen him smile so much in all the years they have known each others. She couldn’t help smiling back.

* * *

 

After thanking Rebecca and Julia profusely Booth went back home, had a quick lunch, and started to prepare for dinner with Hannah. He was going to cook his now, thanks to Cam, famous lasagna. The problem was he was doing it because he suspected that the relaxed and happy evenings with the reporter weren’t going to last long now. He knew she was a nomad and suspected she wanted to stay that way, and he wanted roots which made them incompatible. The time to make decisions was here. Still, nothing could take away his happiness over the done deal with Parker’s custody. He was one happy guy, and everything was done with a huge smile on his face while whistling or singing to the tunes that came from his stereo.

When Hannah arrived everything was ready for a perfect romantic evening: the table was set, candles included; the wine was open; dinner was ready to be served. He was showered and dressed as if it were a date: dark jeans and black dress shirt.

Booth was still happily whistling with the music when he heard the door open. “Hey, Hannah, baby, dinner’s ready,” he called out.

“Wow,” Hannah said when she entered the dining room.

She was looking a little shocked with all the preparations he did for their evening; probably within reason considering they were supposed to talk about those issues that he was so sure they needed to talk about. She didn’t see the point. From her point of view, they were just two adults enjoying a good relationship and having a good time. But she suspected Booth didn’t see it that way, he probably wanted more than that: marriage, family, kids… Those were things that she didn’t want because she wanted her independence and her trips, and she knew that Booth guessed as much. So why the romantic evening?

Seeing how stunned Hannah looked Booth decided to explain. “We said we would talk today, right? So why not do it with style?” he said waving his eyebrows and smiling.

“You look happy,” she commented softly, not wanting to question his statement, knowing it probably was a way of having one last good night. “Did the meeting go that good?”

“Oh, yeah, Rebecca was pretty reasonable for her and we got it signed before lunch,” he told her smiling like a kid at Christmas.

“So, how much time did you get?” she asked a little worried but trying not to show it.

“50/50 all the way,” he answered. His smile grew even bigger, something Hannah hadn’t thought possible a second before.

“What does that means for us, Seeley?” Hannah asked apprehensively. She suspected nothing good, or at least not what she wanted. She sighed, messed her blond hair with her hands and walked nervously to the living room closely followed by the agent.

Booth looked at her, really looking for the first time that night. He studied her, and he saw that she wasn’t happy with the outcome. She wasn’t ready for a family or a kid running around the house all day.

“Depends. Do you feel up to the challenge that having Parker here half of the time would be?” Booth asked her seriously. “Look Hannah, I love you, I really do, but Parker is my number one priority, and I need to know that you’re okay with me being a father before our relationship gets more serious; before I fall completely in love with you. You deserve to know what you’re getting into before you get into it deeper too.”

“I’m good with you being a father, Seeley, but having Parker every other weekend is not the same thing as having him here all the time,” she said letting herself fall on the couch.

“Hannah, if Parker being here is a problem, then you are not good with me being a father,” he answered smiling sadly and sitting beside her so he could look at her face. “I know you love me. The question here is if you love me enough to get the whole package or not, because the reality, Hannah, is that I am a packaged deal.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that, Seeley. I love you, I do, but I’m not sure I’m ready to settle down,” Hannah told him softly.

Booth nodded dejected. Even if he had expected the answer, it still hurt. “Do you have an answer now or do you want to think about it?” He had promised himself that he would give her time to think about it if she wanted and he was going to do it.

“Can I think about it?” Hannah asked confused.

“Well, if you already know what you want, then there’s no need for it, but if you’re not sure then, yes, you can think about it. I have Parker next weekend and then the new contract will kick in, meaning he’ll be here a month starting Monday. You can have until Friday before I pick him up.”

“I came to D.C. for you. I changed my job for you and now I get six days to decide if I want more changes. That’s not fair, Seeley,” Hannah said irritated, getting up from the couch to face him from a higher position.

“Life’s not fair, Hannah,” was Booth’s simple answer. “I didn’t ask for all those changes you made; you made them. You knew that I am a father and about my intention of changing the custody agreement. It’s not my fault that you didn’t really understand the implications.”

Hannah took a deep breath trying to calm down. She loved Seeley and she didn’t want to lose him but a family was too much.

When she finally spoke, she said the only thing she could say to keep him a while. “I was offered to go with the President on his trip to London this week. I’ll leave tomorrow morning and I’ll come back next Sunday night. It’ll give me two extra days to think about it. Is that okay with you?”

Booth nodded accepting her offer, and she took her bag and got ready to leave. “I’m gonna go to the hotel and think. Ultimatums don’t really help my libido.”

Booth smiled tightly but said nothing and let her go. He knew with that last comment that she really never understood what being a father meant to him, and it only confirmed that she didn’t want him as a whole, she just wanted what she perceived as the fun part: the agent, the soldier, the lover… but not the difficult parts. She didn’t want the father, or the man behind the suit or the fatigues. She didn’t want the guy who worried about his son every day constantly or had nightmares about his dead friends. He knew she would call during her trip to tell him that she had reached a decision and she wanted her trips and not roots. That he didn’t fit in her life.


	8. The Maggots in the Meathead

**Chapter 7:**

**The Maggots in the Meathead**

**Timeline:** October, 2010; Sunday of the second week and third week upon the team's return to D.C.

 **Season/episode:** 6x03- "The Maggots in the Meathead"

 **Note/warnings:** In this chapter you will see some tension between Booth and Brennan. Their friendship will heal, but you must remember that it will take time.

This is the last chapter of the Booth/Hannah pairing story arc.

* * *

 

The morning after his talk with Hannah, Booth woke up with a splitting headache and a very bad mood. The former was the result of a horrendous hangover, which was in turn the result of drinking the bottle of wine he opened for dinner on his own and only washed it down with some Chinese leftovers because he hadn't been in the mood for lasagna anymore, and the two or three neat bourbons he had when the wine was finished. The later was a mix of frustration and anger; he was more than tired of falling for women who didn't want him, at least not for real.

He had fallen in love with Rebecca and, while she had loved him enough to have his kid, she hadn't loved him enough to risk her independence by getting married to him. Then he had fallen in love with Brennan, who hadn't loved him enough to fight her fears and try to be with him. And just now he loved a woman that was too consumed by her nomadic lifestyle to stop for five seconds to really consider who the man she was dating was. Thank God he had wanted to have a serious talk about their expectations and his priorities in life before getting more involved. If not he would have only accomplished falling in love with another woman who would have fled sooner rather than later. And yeah, he could say that Hannah hadn't broken it off with him yet, that she was just thinking about their relationship, but he would be lying to himself. He knew what her answer will be.

It really angered him. It was really frustrating to love three women only to discover they were all scared of committing to him and hid it behind their independence. Hell! One had been so terrified she wouldn't even try! He just didn't get it. He was an independent guy and he wasn't afraid of commitment, so why were they?

At the end, it really didn't matter. The conclusion was simple: they didn't want him; they didn't love him enough. And after reaching that sad conclusion last night, he was feeling more than a little depressed, so he drank a little too much and now he was paying the price. He was hung-over, depressed, and angry.

So he got himself a cup of coffee and went to sleep it off a while on the couch. It didn't help much with his dark mood, but it did help with his headache and his hangover. And when his stomach told him that it was lunch time, he finally mustered enough energy to get up from the couch and make himself some lunch. He still didn't want the lasagna that only seemed to be a reminder of his failed relationship so he put it in a box to take it to a charity diner near his apartment and made a grilled cheese sandwich.

After lunch, a lot of coffee, and tidying the house a little he felt more human. He was still sad and angry though. He decided to go for a run because his experience told him it would at least take care of part of his anger. He put on some sweat pants and a t-shirt, got his iPod and keys, and left his apartment jogging slowly towards the nearest park.

* * *

 

Booth had been running for more than an hour and he was starting to feel tired. The hangover, the emotionally exhausting day he had yesterday, and the run were really wearing him down. At least he was feeling less stressed and angry. It was then that one of his favorite Foreigner's songs started sounding in his ears and he started singing it softly to himself. Maybe it was the song that distracted him or maybe it was his tiredness, but the next thing he knew was he had collided with something, loose his footing, and was falling to the floor butt first.

"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention… I was listening to my favorite song and… Booth?" The woman uttered while pulling herself up from the floor and dusting her running pants. She was looking at him with a confused expression on her face. He was equally confused by her presence in this particular park, and he let it show on his face too.

However, the spell was broken when Alex offered her hand to help him up and the agent accepted it, uttering his thanks softly and got up from the floor. "No, no, no, I'm the one that's sorry, Alex, I was distracted too. You… You're okay, right?" he asked concerned, and the woman nodded, smiling at him silently thanking him for his worry.

"So you were listening to your favorite song?" Booth asked teasingly. Their earplugs had fallen down when they had crashed into each other, allowing Booth to listen to said favorite song. He was surprised to notice that she was listening to the same song that had, coupled with fatigue and stress, distracted him enough to not notice the doctor. "Kinda sappy song, you know?"

"That may be, but I'm a girl; I get to listen to sappy songs without getting teased. On the other hand, a big, badass FBI slash Ranger who's listening to the same song doesn't," Alex answered in the same teasing voice.

"Parker, my kid, messed with my iPod… he's 9 and lives with his mom most of the time," Booth tried to justify his choice of music. For her smile he knew that she wasn't buying into it but also that she was expecting some playful and friendly banter about the topic.

"Yeah? Sorry, not buying it." She smirked and crocked her head to one side daring him to keep arguing.

"Okay, truce, I love Foreigner, even the sappy songs," Booth offered, and Alex accepted it with a smile. "So… you live nearby?" the agent asked trying to find a new topic of conversation. He really didn't want to say goodbye to Alex yet.

"Yeah, at the other side of the park. You?"

"Just a few blocks down that street," Booth answered, pointing to the nearest street by them. "So where are Maya and Sarah?" he asked hesitantly. He didn't know if he was being nosey and he didn't want to offend her, but he was curious.

"With my neighbor. She's an old lady that lives with her granddaughter, a young woman that's juggling college, and work, and a nine month old boy. As you can imagine every dime counts... they babysit for me from time to time and I get a free afternoon for a relaxing run and a long, very long bath," she told him smiling. It was obvious to him that she liked her neighbors.

For some reason Booth smiled back at her, probably it was the idea of such a beautiful woman in a tub. He stopped his mind from wandering around and asked with concern, "So where are the parents of such a great young girl and the father of the baby?"

"Susan's daughter and son-in-law died in a car accident a long time ago. As for the boy's father, he resigned his rights before Ian was even born. They haven't heard from him since," Alex answered with sadness and some irritation. She was sad for her friends and probably more than a little irritated with the little weasel that fathered the boy.

"Little weasel," muttered Booth, as annoyed as the doctor.

"If it makes any difference if Susan catches the guy he would learn what an old lady can do with a purse," Alex told him with a crooked smile making Booth chuckle. "She's a real mama bear."

After a few awkward moments of silence, Alex decided to ask, "So, speaking about mama bears, when I delivered Logan's file, I met your very own mama bear and she told me that you were dating a reporter… how's that going?" She was only curious. She was not fishing for information, or at least that was what she was telling herself. She didn't feel ready to date an FBI agent yet, but she could admit, if only to herself, she may want to do so in the future.

Booth sighed in irritation; he was more than a little angry with Hannah because she had followed him to D.C. yet she hadn't thought about him at all, about whom he really was or what his expectations or desires would be. She just thought about her own desires. "Not good," he answered simply, letting his anger show.

"Sorry, I didn't want to be nosey," Alex apologized, thinking she had crossed a line and he was irritated with her.

"No, don't apologize. It's okay. I'm angry with Hannah… that's her name, obviously," he said a little nervous not liking how rude he had sounded. "I met her in Afghanistan and we started dating. She's a nomad, as she likes to call it, so when I got back home I thought it would end sooner rather than later, but she came to D.C. And… well, she knew that I was a father… dating a father is too much for her nomadic lifestyle; but she came here to be with me!"

"And you're angry because she followed you to D.C. out of her temporary desires and didn't think about your feelings or your son's," Alex deduced.

Booth nodded. "Fortunately, I didn't introduce her to Parker yet. But I got half custody yesterday so we talked about it… and as you can imagine it didn't end well… now I'm just waiting for her to call me and end it."

He could acknowledge he was mourning a relationship that hadn't ended yet, but he felt it was over. He could see that Alex understood that and why his relationship with Hannah couldn't survive. This made him feel better for some reason. He wasn't going to explore it yet though. He wasn't ready.

Seeing his dark mood, Alex decided to lighten it a little. "I thought that guys with kids were hot. Women no, mind you, but guys… Oh, Yeah!"

"I think that's dogs," Booth answered smirking at her, "at least from my experience."

"You may be right. It's been a while since I dated… I can definitely tell you that having kids is like a guy repellent, so I know the feeling," she told him sympathetically.

"We should found a club," he added a little dejected.

"Anyway, I should get going home," Alex said a little awkwardly, not really knowing how to continue the conversation. Neither of them was ready to date the other, so taking a step in that direction seemed pointless at the moment.

"Yeah, the kids and all… don't wanna let you without your bath," Booth answered smiling at her. "And I probably need a shower." Alex turned her nose to the side making a face that clearly said that she agree with him. Booth laughed softly. "Okay, I'll take the probably out of the sentence."

"I didn't say it," Alex said teasingly.

"You didn't need to," Booth answered keeping his smile in place. "I'll let you go. See you, Alex."

"See you, Booth, and congratulations… you know, the half custody," Alex said smiling at him and waving her hand as she started running into the park.

With that, Booth started running back to his apartment feeling better about everything. Hannah was going to be out of his life soon, but he was going to spend half of it with his son. It was more than a fair trade in his opinion.

* * *

 

On Monday, it was his phone that woke up Booth way too early, even for him. Shaw called him to tell him that someone had found a body in a very bad state of decomposition on the beach. It was clearly a case for him and the Jeffersonian lab and Charlie had entrusted her with calling Booth. They agreed to meet at the Hoover and go to the crime scene together, so Booth got out of bed, called Cam and Brennan, got ready, and left for the Hoover to pick up Shaw and a black coffee at the cart besides the building. He desperately needed a coffee.

When Booth and Shaw arrived to the crime scene, Brennan and Cam were already looking at the body, and Wendell was picking up soil samples of the area. Booth greeted the squints and introduced Shaw.

"People, this is Agent Genevieve Shaw, she's going to be the secondary liaison with the lab, you know, she'll do my job when I can't for whatever reason. Until then, I'm gonna train her in working these kinds of cases and with you, so she'll be around," he explained. "Agent Shaw, these are Doctor Camille Saroyan, Doctor Temperance Brennan and Mr. Wendell Bray," he added pointing to each squint in turn. "You'll have to wait to go to the lab to meet Hodgins and Angela."

Soon enough the work at the crime scene was done and everyone returned to the lab, the agents included. Once there, Booth introduced Shaw to Hodgins and Angela. Then he explained to all of them that Agent Shaw was going to be around in the lab for the duration of this case, and she was expected to learn as much as she could of the procedures the scientists followed, so he asked them to include her and answer her questions. "And Hodgins if something happens to my agent due to one of your stupid experiments I'll shoot you, got it?"

"Got it. Don't worry. I don't plan on doing anything stupid. If you kill me Angela or her father will find a way to kill me again for leaving her alone now," Hodgins answered seeing the pointed look his wife was giving him.

"Okay, guys, I want to say something else that is not case related," Booth said calling the squints attention back to him. "I have something to celebrate and I want you to celebrate with me, so when we solve this case we'll have a get together at the Founding Fathers. Wendell, invite the rest of the squinterns, would you?"

Wendell nodded. "Are we celebrating what I think we are? It is about Parker, right?"

"Yep." Booth's bright smile told the squintern and Cam all they needed to know, and both congratulate him effusively.

When the congratulations were over, Booth went to his office leaving two happy squints, a bunch of puzzled ones, and Shaw equally confused. He already had an ID for the victim because his wallet had been with the body, so he could run a background check on him and talk to his mother.

Richard Dominick Genaro, AKA Ritchie the V, was a young guy who went to school to became a therapist but who partied too much with a bunch of overgrown dumbass kids that Brennan insisted on calling Guidos. Mrs. Genaro blamed one of those friends for his death and/or any trouble her son could have been in, Frankie Costello, AKA L'il Frankie. Knowing that, Booth wanted to interview the guy so he headed with Brennan to the house Ritchie shared with his friends in the Jersey Shore. There, after a shameful spectacle of cries, Frankie told the partners about a ridiculous fight the victim had with Peppy Dio because they were wearing the same t-shirt on Thursday at Club Elegante, the last time they saw him alive.

On their way to the Jersey Shore, Brennan was so focused on comparing the Guidos with a tribe that they didn't talk about anything else, except for a short call from Cam telling them Ritchie died approximately two days ago. But unfortunately for Booth, on the way back to D.C., she was no longer interested in that and she wanted to know what he had to announce to the group. Cam and Wendell already knew, at least partially, and the rest of the team was speculating about it. The general consensus was that it was related to his allotted time with Parker. Anyhow, as his partner, she wanted to know and Booth obliged.

"Yes. Rebecca and I signed a half custody agreement this Saturday," he told her smiling happily.

"When did you tell Cam and Wendell about it? And why didn't you tell me? I'm your partner," she asked, upset because she hadn't been the first to know about it.

"I talked with Cam and Wendell about drawing a custodial contract while I was in Afghanistan. I told Caroline too and she put me in contact with a lawyer friend of hers. They know that the agreement was signed but not the terms, so don't tell them. I want to do it myself. The only ones who know I get half custody are you and Hannah," Booth explained. He didn't tell her about his encounter with Alex in the park because he feared it would lead to another argument.

"That still doesn't answer why you didn't tell me?" she pushed the issue. She was clearly upset about it.

"When, Bones? When you were in your little bubble in Maluku ignoring all of us? You didn't keep contact with me, or anyone else," Booth retorted tightly and Brennan dropped at least that part of the debate. It was obvious she felt chastised.

Sadly, it didn't last. "How did Hannah take it? I can't imagine an intelligent and independent woman like her wanting to change her lifestyle to build a family."

Booth really hated her know-it-all voice at the moment. "You should tell that to Angela or Cam," he answered in an irritated voice. "Anyway you're right on one thing, like you, she doesn't like commitment, and while she's thinking about everything during her work trip, I'm fairly sure she'll call to break off our relationship."

"I'm very committed to my work so it's untrue I don't like commitment," Brennan argued.

"I think we both know I meant in relationships, Bones."

That was the last thing said during the rest of the drive, probably due to the agent's sharp voice that made clear his desire to leave that particular conversation. Booth was tired of her jabs at his relationship with Hannah and/or relationships and love in general.

Back in D.C. they met with Sweets and Shaw at the diner for lunch and to comment on any progress made on the case. Booth left Sweets with a file full of printed text messages from the victim's cell phone for him to study because he sure refused to look through all that gibberish of letters. He didn't understand that crap. Furthermore, he refused to do so. That kind of crap was baby duck's job. He ordered him to do it at the Jeffersonian to allow Shaw to observe and aid him. He wanted her to see how the shrink worked without pulling her out of the lab and the learning process that was observing the squints.

"Shaw, when you get back to the lab tell Wendell that I like Evelyn very much so he wants to be a gentleman," Booth told the agent moments after the squintern left the diner with take-out for two. They all turned to stare at him confused and waiting for the agent to explain himself. Obviously he was the only one who saw Wendell enter the diner and get the take-out. He refused to gossip about it so he ignored their looks, and went back to his food. "Just do it, Shaw."

The next morning, Sweets and Shaw explained to him what he called a jealousy map, basically a diorama that pointed them to Marie Galasso as a possible scorned woman and a suspect. She was, however, cleared after Booth interviewed her, but she gave them another suspect: Terror, the bouncer of Club Elegante. Terror sold steroids in his gym and when Ritchie ratted him out he lost his job, but he too was a dead end. The guy had been in New York the whole weekend to watch Billy Elliot and he knew the play by heart. And after talking to Peppy, Booth was convinced of both his innocence and his stupidity. With that Marie, Terror, and Peppy Dio were cleared. They were out of suspects; they didn't know what the weapon was, and they still had two missing days between the last time Ritchie was seen and his actual death.

Fortunately, two days after their first trip to Jersey Shore, during lunch Brennan realized that the victim must have been frozen for a while and called the lab. Wendell and Cam were able to solve the case with that information.

"If the guy was covered with ice then the thaw would have accelerated decomposition, which explains why he was in such a bad shape when we found him," the coroner explained.

"So, whoever killed him did it on Thursday, put him on ice and then buried him on the beach on Saturday," Booth said thinking out loud, "and you said that the killer hit him with a pipe-shaped thing of concrete covered with yellow plastic…"

"The ice guy, Booth," Wendell almost shouted, excited, "I worked on that a summer; you need a bat to break the ice; the murder weapon is a bat. And I know it has nothing to do with the crime, but Booth, I promise I intend on being a gentleman."

"Good boy," Booth told him through the phone. "So Bones, what do you say, should we go to bag our guy?"

Brennan and Booth left the diner and went to arrest the ice guy, Clinton, who was fed up with the Guidos stealing his ice and had wanted to give Peppy a lesson. Sad thing was he confused him with Ritchie because they looked alike and wore the same t-shirt, so when he confronted Ritchie, the victim didn't understand what was happening. They fought and Clinton hit him with the bat and killed him.

* * *

 

Hannah had been thinking about Seeley since she left his apartment on Saturday night. At first, she had been angry at him for giving ultimatums and forcing changes on her, but then she realized that Booth was right. He didn't ask her to follow him; she did it because she wanted to. She knew about his intentions with Parker; she just assumed he wouldn't get more time with him. Since reaching that conclusion, she had tried to decide on what she wanted. She moped for days until Margaret, another reporter on the plane asked her about it.

They talked about it for a while and finally, Margaret told her, "Look, Hannah, you ain't gonna separate the hot guy and the father. You can have the hot daddy or find yourself another hot guy."

Margaret was very blunt and sometimes way too cynical, but she was generally right. And this time was not an exception.

* * *

 

With the case solved, the team met at the Founding Fathers to celebrate, like Booth asked them. All the squints were there, even Fisher who, after his short period in an institution, had decided to work only on limbo cases for the time being.

"Make the big announcement, Cherie," Caroline said joining them.

Booth nodded, but before he could talk his cell rang and he excused himself to take the call. However, he stayed close enough for his friends to hear his half of the conversation. He already knew what the call was about, and while he valued his privacy, he knew that keeping his break up from the squints was a utopia. Not only that, he didn't feel the need to walk further away to be out of earshot from his friends. Maybe he was just too much into the celebratory mode to care.

"I understand, Hannah. You're a nomad and I want roots," he said to the phone with a sad smile. "I'm sorry too. We're both sorry and we're both a little hurt, but if we had waited we'd be very hurt. Goodbye Hannah, have a good life."

"Okay. Back to my news," he told his friends at his return to their table. Their faces told him that they had indeed heard him, but he kept talking without giving them time to comment. "Some of you know that I've been working on getting a custodial agreement for Parker… and well, Rebecca and I signed it this Saturday… I got half custody," he said with what probably was the biggest smile they've ever seen on him.

Congratulations, handshakes, and hugs were given with no measure. Hodgins got a bottle of Champagne for a toast and told them to drink whatever they wanted because the night was on him. "Congratulations, man. I'm very happy for you," he told Booth honestly. "And I'm sorry about Hannah… the call," Hodgins pointed to his phone as if to tell him that they heard his conversation.

The agent shrugged a little and smiled to show them that he was fine, a little hurt but fine. "So, Cherie, no more blonde reporter?" Caroline asked.

"No, my relationship with Hannah is over, Caroline."

"Good. Now you can call the pretty doctor, Cherie," she said firmly.

Booth blushed furiously and hung his head trying unsuccessfully to hide it while everyone else tried to get as much gossip as possible about the pretty doctor.


	9. The Body And The Bounty

**Chapter 8:**

**The Body And The Bounty**

**Timeline:** October, 2010; fourth week upon the team's return to D.C.

**Season/episode:** 6x04- “The Body and The Bounty”

* * *

 

The rest of the week, after solving the Genaro case was slow or at least calmer than usual. This suited Booth perfectly because he went through two more sessions with Sweets. Only two to go! Happy, happy thought!

The weekend was spent with Parker, which was always good in Booth’s book. When Monday arrived, the custody agreement kicked in and his first month with Parker living at his apartment arrived too. He was in a very good mood and not even the fourth session with Sweets took that away from him.

His mood faltered though when his car broke down. The damn thing took him from home to Parker’s school and then to the Hoover but refused to take him to the crime scene, so he was forced to travel in Brennan’s toy car. And because it was her car, she chose the theme of their conversation, which for some weird reason was the perfect murder and if he would be capable of catching her if she ever did commit said perfect murder. Both Cam and Booth thought the conversation was very weird, maybe even scary, but when he prompted Brennan to reveal her plan she refused saying that she couldn’t risk him revealing the plan to a female killer in a postcoital haze now that he was dating again. From then on, Cam just found it very amusing and her smirk let him know it.

“She’s jealous that you’re on the market again, Seeley,” she whispered to him.

Booth was very happy when Brennan finally left him at the Hoover before going to the lab to examine the head with shattered teeth and the hands that they found in the dumpster. He didn’t enjoy being the source of Cam’s amusement in the slightest.

Leaving Cam’s amusement aside, this was one weird case, not for the case per se, but because of the squintern, or squinterns, that participated. Wendell, who was doing as many hours in the lab as he was allowed, was the official squintern of the week, but none other than Professor Bunsen Jude, the Science Dude, was going to shoot an episode at the lab and he wanted Brennan to make an appearance. So in order to earn her respect, and with it her participation on his show, he joined the team as a temporary squintern.

 _C’est la révolution!_ The rest of the squinterns and Hodgins went crazy; they all wanted to work with the Dude. All of them, even Fisher, volunteered to assist for free to work with him. Cam was not amused anymore, but Booth was.

“So you have all of them in the lab?” he asked the coroner. Cam, Angela and Booth were having an early lunch at the diner while Brennan examined what little bones they had. Cam and Brennan agreed that one of them should stay in the lab to protect it from Hodgins and the squinterns.

“Yep. Fisher; Clark; Arastoo; Vincent, spurring facts about children and children’s shows; Daisy, even more hyper than usual… and of course, Wendell, but he was supposed to be here. The other ones no.” She complained and the agent laughed. “Don’t laugh. It’s not funny!”

“Oh, yes, it is. But on a more important note, Parker has been driving me crazy since I told him about the show being shot in the lab and I have a very important question: Who’s better MacGyver or the Dude? Because the Dude makes cool experiments like Max, but Mac is wicked smart. He’s the hero and always gets the girl…”

“Those are Parker’s words, right?” Cam asked, smirking at the absurdity of the question. “He watches MacGyver? It’s still on TV?”

Booth nodded. “Rebecca had a crush on the guy and she has all the DVDs.”

Angela answered with conviction in her flirty voice, “well, I agree with Rebecca, MacGyver was very hot. Mac, hands down.”

“Hodgins won’t agree with you. He seems to think the Dude is some kind of god… but I do. MacGyver was hot,” Cam answered chuckling softly. “But aren’t you worried about the girl part?”

“Nah… kissing girls is yucky,” he answered making a face.

“So getting the girl is cool but kissing her is yucky?” Angela asked confused. “You’re gonna have to explain me how that works if I have a boy.”

Booth shrugged his shoulders. “Kids’ logic. Last year he wanted me to have a girlfriend because he wanted a pool.”

“Anyway, I’m sorry to cut short this enlightening conversation, but I have to go back to the lab before the horde of squinterns commanded by Hodgins can destroy it,” Cam said sounding a little frustrated.

With that the trio returned to their jobs. Angela had sent the facial reconstruction of the victim to Booth’s office before lunch, and he had Shaw ID him, so when he returned to his office the victim’s boss was there.

Their victim was Ray Kaminsky, AKA Wolf, a bounty hunter who worked for Gregory Gering of _Gering Bail Bonds_. Gering told Booth that Ray was following Charles Braverman when he disappeared. Braverman was indicted for the murder of a coworker. He jammed a mechanical pencil through his eye for singing show tunes at his desk. With that past Gering considered him extremely dangerous and he sent his best guy after him.

Reading the file with Shaw, they noticed that the prosecutor of the case was Caroline, so Booth called her to join them. Caroline informed them that Braverman’s wife, Molly, who was supposed to testify against him, was missing. They had surveillance, both on their house and on Charles’ cabin in the woods, but as of now they had been unable to locate either of them.

Angela called then to tell them that Hodgins and the squinterns had analyzed the beard of the victim and discovered where he had been before his death. They could pinpoint a half-mile stretch off the 250 highway where surely the rest of his body was.

“Braverman’s cabin is there,” Caroline informed the agent looking at the map in his computer.

“So Kaminsky follows Braverman; he makes him and kills him,” Shaw deduced.

“Probably, but let’s found ourselves a body,” Booth answered, picking up the phone. “Let me call Tutti and Cam, and then we’ll be on our way. Caroline, wanna come?”

“Tutti, sir?” Shaw asked her boss once he hung up the phone.

“A cadaver dog, she’ll find the body for us. Obviously I called her handler, Maggie Macgregor,” Booth explained while the trio left his office en route to his SUV. “Hey, Shaw, MacGyver or the Dude?”

“Sorry, sir?” Shaw asked, completely dumbfounded by her boss’ question.

“Parker can’t decide who’s the coolest,” he said as if that explained everything.

“MacGyver, sir. He was hot,” Evelyn answered, giving him a tray with four take-out coffees. “I hope I got it right, Miss Julian,” she added, pointing to one of the coffees.

“So that makes it four for MacGyver and his hotness… and what did I tell you about my coffee and calling me sir, Evelyn?”

“That you can make your own coffee and that I shouldn’t call you sir, sir. But these are for Genny, Cam and Miss Julian, sir,” she said pointing to each cup in turn and finally taking the last one herself. “What I don’t know, sir, is why you assume that the fourth is for you?”

“That’s mean! I don’t get a coffee. I just get to hold yours,” Booth whined. He even pouted like a little kid.

“Oh, don’t be a baby, Cherie! I thought that you were all for being a gentleman. Well, let me tell you that pouting to get a coffee is not what a gentleman would do,” Caroline admonished him. “You should practice, Cherie. You gotta impress the pretty doctor… if you ever call her…”

“But that was mean,” he pleaded, trying his charming smile on the prosecutor.

“Well, sir, if I’m mean, you wouldn’t want your portable mug full of hot black coffee,” Evelyn said in a teasing voice, waving the mug in front of him. “It should keep it hot until you get there.”

Booth snatched the mug from her hands before she changed her mind. “Okay, you aren’t mean, but we’re adding a new rule to your not-to-do list: do not torture me.” He took a sip of coffee and made an act of tasting it. “Perfect, Evelyn. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Booth shook his head and murmured something about how he was completely ignored even by his secretary. Nonetheless, he set the pace towards the elevators and their final destination, closely followed by Caroline and Shaw.

“So, Cherie, going back to our previous conversation, my puckish side says MacGyver,” Caroline said while they waited for the elevators. When she saw Shaw blushing, she pointed to the young agent and said, “That blush puts the count up to six ladies finding Mac a lot hotter than the Dude.”

“No need to blush, Shaw. That’s why Cam and Angela chose him, and why Rebecca has the DVDs.”

* * *

 

Booth was right. Tutti found the body and Cam took it to the lab for the squints to examine. She was more than happy to give to the bored squinterns something useful to do before they could get sucked in by Hodgins’ need to do disastrous experiments.

The Dude and the squinterns worked together on the body and discovered that there was substantial damage to the left fourth rib, directly over the heart. But when studying it closely, they discovered that both sides of the rib didn’t match; there was a missing piece of the bone, which they found, and they found remodeling too. When they presented their findings to Brennan, she had Angela recreate the murder trying to prove her theory: Kaminsky was killed by his own rib. His rib was fractured somehow a week prior his death, and then a second injury dislodged and propelled the piece of bone into his heart.

That same afternoon, Booth found that Molly was hiding with her hairdresser thanks to Sweets input. Booth, Brennan and Shaw went to talk to her but were interrupted by Braverman. They all pursued him but due to the intervention of another bounty hunter, Janet LeBlanc, the guy escaped. Booth arrested LeBlanc and took her to the Hoover but ended up leaving her free to increase the pressure on Braverman.

After that, Booth left for the day. He had to pick Parker up from Hockey practice, and it was already bad enough that he couldn’t coach that day and left the substitute to do it.

* * *

 

The next morning started at the lab with a crazy experiment designed to find the murder weapon. All the squinterns, Hodgins, and the Dude took turns to shoot all kinds of weird things to a dummy with paint stir sticks for the ribs and a balloon filled of red paint for a heart.

“Oh, my God! I hope this baby is a girl!” Angela exclaimed, seeing them throw things against the dummy.

At that exact moment, Daisy, looking like a mad woman, threw an axe to the dummy. “You may want to reconsider that,” Cam told her.

“Done. I hope this baby is like me.”

* * *

 

At the Hoover, Caroline showed some footage to Booth where Gering could be seen hitting Kaminsky with a pool cue. That was probably the first injury, the one that broke the victim’s rib, so they interrogated Gering with Shaw and Sweets in the observation room. He, of course, denied killing Kaminsky and gave them a taped conversation between Molly and Charles. After that, it was obvious that Molly was completely subdued to her husband and was helping him to escape. Caroline, Shaw, Sweets, Booth, and Brennan worked together to determine the most probable escape route, and the partners jumped in the car to follow it leaving Shaw to coordinate everything from the Hoover. Considering that Braverman was injured from his last encounter with them, and that it was bad enough to force him into a medical facility, Booth had all the facilities on route controlled and/or advised of the situation.

Booth and Brennan were already in the car when the squints called to tell them that the Dude found the murder weapon: a potato gun. At the incredulity of the car occupants he explained that the murder weapon was a blunt, malleable projectile moving at a relatively low speed. The discovery was good enough to get Brennan to agree to participate in the Dude’s show. Loud cheers by the horde of squinterns and Hodgins came through the phone. They all had tried to convince her to participate in the show since the beginning of the case, and this was no doubt a victory for them.

Finally, Shaw called Booth to inform him that Braverman had been spotted at MacArthur Hospital by one of the agents on surveillance duty. Once there, the partners were able to catch the spouses and LeBlanc, who had tried to hunt the couple too.

During the arrest, Booth noticed that LeBlanc’s weapon shot bean bags; that was the murder weapon. LeBlanc shot Kaminsky to get Braverman herself without knowing that he had a broken rib, and when she accidentally killed him, she cut his hands and head off to make the identification difficult.

* * *

 

With the case solved and the murderer in custody, the Squint Squad, Caroline, and Booth were in the lab to see the shooting of the Dude’s episode. Max was there too with the kids of the after-school children’s program that he still ran. They were going to be the spectators of the show for the day, and Parker had wanted to join his friends so he was seated there too. Meanwhile, the adults were standing behind the cameras staring at the stage created on the platform and at the kids happily waiting for the Dude.

“Hi, Booth,” Max greeted the agent. “Parker’s here, right?”

“Hi, Max. Yes, he’s there already,” Booth answered pointing to were the blond boy could be seen playing with the boy beside him.

Booth could see that Max probably wanted to talk about something. For a con, the guy could be very obvious sometimes. Yet the agent didn’t want to get into it at the moment. Whatever it was could wait until the show was over. He wanted to enjoy watching his son have his fun with it. Plus Caroline had been looking around the place since she arrived. She seemed to be looking for something or someone. She was plotting something. He didn’t know what, and that made him very nervous.

“Oh, good. There she is,” the prosecutor said, sounding clearly relieved by her presence, whoever the woman was.

Booth turned around to follow her eyes and find out what she was talking about. His mouth fell open, almost to his knees, and he glared, incredulous, at Caroline. “What? … How?”

“I told you to call the pretty doctor, didn’t I?” Caroline told him in her no nonsense voice. Then, without giving him the opportunity to argue or point out that he hadn’t called, she pushed him in the direction of the door where Alex was standing with Maya and a carrier with Sarah. “Now, go, go, fuss, fuss, go.”

He didn’t have any other option than to go and greet the lady, not that he wanted other options either. He was happy to see her there. It was obvious that Caroline had invited her for him and she came, and that thought put a smile on his face.

* * *

 

They all had seen the exchange between the agent and the prosecutor, and they all loved gossip, so the Hodgins’ and Cam practically surrounded the lawyer in pursuit of answers.

Meanwhile, Max decided to observe from a distance and joined the squinterns. They were all there - except Daisy - anxiously waiting to see their mentor in the kids show. The squinterns probably noticed the others gossiping about Booth and the lady he was with, but only Wendell seemed to really pay attention to it. Seeing Wendell smile at the scene the agent and the strange woman with the girls created Max worried that Booth could be moving on for real and his daughter may never get him back. He decided to talk to the agent at a later time when he could get a straight answer out of him and finally understand what the hell had happened last year with his daughter and her partner. He told himself that maybe they still could get together, but even he had to admit that Booth seemed quite happy with the lady.

“Oh, god! Is that Alex?” Angela asked, excited. “What’s she doing here?”

“He didn’t call her, so I invited her,” Caroline answered simply.

“You know where he saw her the first time?” Cam asked, distressed giving the prosecutor a murderous glare. If she backed out, Booth would get hurt so she wasn’t sure that she liked that the prosecutor was playing matchmaker.

“Yes, I do.”

“I don’t,” Angela and Hodgins complained at the same time.

“Arlington Cemetery,” Cam told them and then went back to glare at the lawyer.

“I don’t understand why that’s an issue, but I do have a question: Where is the father of those two girls?” Hodgins asked confused by his boss strong reaction to the situation.

“Guess, Bug Guy, guess,” Cam answered in her best Bronx’s voice.

“Oh!” Angela and Hodgins exclaimed at the same time, both putting the pieces together simultaneously.

“Yeah, oh.”

“She’s here, Cherie,” Caroline pointed out the obvious.

Angela smiled finally understanding the prosecutor. “If she’s here, she’s what Booth needs.”

Cam relented and smiled too. Deep down, she did agree with them. She was just a little worried about her old friend.

“Shush, they’re coming over,” Hodgins ended the conversation before the agent could hear them gossiping about him.

* * *

 

“Alex,” Booth greeted her with a smile and then waved his hand and smiled at the girls to greet them too. “Hello Maya, Sarah.”

“Booth,” Alex answered, returning the smile. Her smile grew bigger when she saw both girls waving back at him happily. “They like you.”

“What can I say? Girls like me,” he joked. “So… don’t get this wrong, I’m happy that you’re here, but… how? Caroline seems to like playing matchmaker… so did she threaten you… blackmail you maybe?”

Alex chuckled. “She did no such thing. She sent to the hospital some passes for me for the shooting, and I had two good reasons to come, so here I am.”

“Two good reason, eh? And what might those reasons be?” Booth gave her his best charm smile.

“Well… for starters Maya loves the show. She’s too little to get it so I guess that she likes the Dude himself and the whole paraphernalia,” she answered, waving her right hand wildly and pointing to the colorful stage.

“That’s a very good reason to come, Doctor Foster,” he answered, feigning seriousness.

Alex nodded in the same fake serious way. She then tilted her head, smiled softly and asked, “Wanna know the second reason, Agent Booth?”

Booth felt instantly nervous. He gave a faint “yeah” for an answer, but he could see in her eyes the answer and that terrified and excited him greatly.

“I assumed that if Caroline was sending the tickets, you’d be here,” she told him nervously.

Booth’s smile grew even bigger. This woman had been through a lot and after everything, she was here to see him. She wanted to take the risk with him. It filled him with a warm feeling. It made him happy, but it was also a great responsibility for him. She was trusting him with her heart.

“We shouldn’t disappoint Caroline, then. Let’s go over there with the squints, shall we ladies?” he said offering Alex his arm.

Alex laughed at his antics but intertwined her arm with his and they walked towards the squints.


	10. The Bones That Weren’t And Modern Hunting Techniques

**Chapter 9:**

**The Bones That Weren’t And Modern Hunting Techniques**

**Timeline:** October, 2010; end of fourth week upon the team's return to D.C.

**Season/episode:** 6x05 - “The Bones That Weren’t”

* * *

 

Kaminsky’s case was solved in barely two days, which left Booth with enough time that week to go through his fifth and last session with Sweets and to redact his first evaluation of Shaw and comment on it with Hacker and Cullen. All of it was on top of his normal workload and having Parker to care for. He made it to Parker’s second practice of the week to coach the team, and he even went to the first practice his team had for the interdepartmental league on Thursday.

He took Parker with him. He liked watching him play and he was attached to Wendell. It was a good opportunity for his boy to bond with his friend, and he avoided the unnecessary babysitter. After the practice, Wendell and Booth changed the traditional beers with the guys for milkshakes at the diner with Parker. The boy finished the last of his homework there while the two adults talked about a bit of everything.

“So… how was your date with Alex after the show?”

“It wasn’t a date date; we just went for a snack with the kids… milkshakes and such… no big deal,” the agent answered a little flustered.

“But, dad, you two were doing these weird goo-goo eyes all the time, like in the movies… that means that you like each other. And mom said that you must be dating someone new because you always have a ‘silly grin’ on your face,” Parker said quoting his mother.

Booth groaned. “Not Rebecca too.”

“Oh, c’mon man… you can’t deny that,” Wendell said pointing to Parker with his thumb.  “I watched you during the show too and you couldn’t take your eyes off of her. You gonna date her, right? You gotta try, Booth.”

“Okay, okay, don’t get all flustered, Wendell. I have a date with her tomorrow night, a real one, you know… dinner, pretty restaurant, the whole nine yards…I’m even taking her to dance.”

“Good. That’s better man,” Wendell told him and both drank from their milkshakes practically at the same time.

“Dad invited her to his game on Saturday too,” Parker chimed in smiling. “I’m done, dad, this was the last thing,” the kid added giving his notebook to his father.

“Okay, bub, need me to check anything?” Seeing Parker shake his head while still drinking his milkshake with the straw, he put the notebook back into the kid’s backpack.

“So…hockey… you’re using the big guns, man,” Wendell commented waggling his eyebrows.

“Oh, shut up.” The two guys laughed with their friendly banter, but soon enough they parted ways. Booth had to take Parker home at a reasonable hour, and Wendell needed to study.

* * *

 

Friday morning, Brennan came to his apartment knocking desperately at what, from his point of view, was an ungodly hour. In reality it wasn’t that bad; Parker was already in the bathroom getting ready for school, but he had had a very bad night full of nightmares and he was sleep deprived.

Giving up on his last ten minutes in bed, the time that Parker had left of his bathroom routine, the agent threw the covers off of his body. “Yeah. Oh.” He got into a sitting position on the edge of the bed and made his toes crack. Then he stood up, put on his robe, and walked slowly towards the door stretching his body, making his joints crack along the way.

“Booth!” Brennan yelled from the other side of the door, still knocking insistently.

“Yeah!” Booth stretched his back and neck.

“Booth? Are you there?”

“No, I'm in South Beach, working on my tan,” he told the closed door, irritated with Brennan’s constant knocking. He finally got to the door and opened it for the anthropologist, “all right.”

As soon as the door was open, Brennan started talking. “You need Sweets to sign your post-Afghanistan Fitness for Duty report. Did you forget?”

“Me?” Booth asked confused. He didn’t understand what exactly she was doing at his apartment at the moment.

“Well, generally you wear more clothing, and you've been avoiding this for weeks.”

“Avoiding what? Sweets’ review… I just got through the last session two days ago and the paperwork reached my desk yesterday just before I left for Hockey practice. Bones, I had to do five sessions with the kid, these things aren’t instantaneous,” Booth explained to her. “I’m not dressed ‘cause Parker is in the bathroom; I’ll get ready while he has breakfast.” He walked towards the kitchen expecting her to follow him, stretching the rest of his limbs and making his joints crack. “And I couldn't sleep. I got up at the crack of dawn. Ow.”

“Do you always have this pronounced a release of gas in the morning?” Booth made a face to show his confusion and Brennan explained further, “synovial gas, that's what the cracking is.”

“Synovial gas? What's that mean?” Booth started the coffeemaker, put a frying pan on the kitchen and got the bread and eggs out of the fridge.

“Well, there comes a point when your body can't hide all the abuse it's taken.” Booth listened to her while he made breakfast for him and his boy.

“What do you… what do you mean ‘certain point’?” he asked. He got the milk out of the fridge murmuring something about a distracting anthropologist making him forget half of the breakfast goodies. He poured a glass for Parker and turned his attention back to the eggs and the toasts.

“Booth, you’ve been shot and beaten, and…” Booth stopped her with a pointed look and rising hand when he heard Parker get out of the bathroom calling out for his breakfast.

“Here, Parks.” Booth put a plate with two pieces of toast and some eggs beside the glass of milk for the kid. He then served himself a share of the breakfast and a big mug of coffee. “Bones get some coffee and sit down. We’ll leave in thirty; I’ll take Parks to school, and then I’ll go to the Hoover.”

“Oh.”

“You can follow us in your toy car or you can meet me at the Hoover,” Booth told her. He still was completely at a loss as to why she was there, but it was easy to deduce that Brennan wanted to support him, and had just chosen a weird way to do so. Anyway, he appreciated it; plus he didn’t have much of an appetite and was eating fairly little, so he decided to suggest an alternative. They would meet at the diner for a real breakfast after he had left Parker at school. He could call Sweets and have him meet them there to sign the review; it would kill two birds with one stone.

When she nodded agreeing to the plan, he excused himself to get ready and less than thirty minutes later he was showered, shaved, and dressed. “Ready to go. C’mon, buddy, get your pack.”

* * *

 

At the diner, the partners were seated and having breakfast while waiting for Sweets to join them. The time was filled with Brennan’s chatter about Booth’s injuries.

“Booth, you've been shot and beaten, jumped out of airplanes. The skeletal damage alone is...”

“Oh, God, I'm falling apart.” The agent winced thinking of the damage done to his body and the pain endured at the time.

“You're fine… It's your skeleton that's falling apart.”

Booth could see that Brennan wanted to continue, but she was interrupted by Sweets finally making it into the diner and crumbling into the booth besides her and in front of the agent.

“You’re secretary is a bulldog,” the psychologist complained. “I had to show her your text to prove to her that you told me to get the document and bring it here.”

Booth chuckled. “I’ll reward her with a coffee when I get back.”

“Very funny, Booth, very funny,” Sweets whined and even pouted when he saw that the agent was being at least partially serious.

Booth took the file from Sweets’ hands and read his review. The psychologist declared that he was psychologically and emotionally fit for duty. The file was almost ready to send up the chain of command to his bosses: the only things missing were the signatures of Booth that showed that he had read it and of Sweets himself. Booth got a pen out of his jacket, signed the paper, and gave it to the shrink.

His phone rang at that moment and Booth was informed of the finding of a new body in need of the Squints’ expertise, so he snatched the file from Sweets’ hands once signed, paid the bill, and stood up. “C’mon, Bones. We got a case.”

* * *

 

The trip to the crime scene was extremely irritating for Booth because Brennan decided to spend it listing all his injuries ever. Honestly, Booth didn’t need to think about them or remember them more often than when his body reminded him. Brennan didn’t seem to notice his discomfort though, and they exited the SUV at Kalorama Park with her still going on like a dog with a bone.

“The compression fracture to your T3 alone should have incapacitated you years ago. Then, there's the fracture to your sternum from when that obese girl shot you; fractures to your metatarsals from when you were tortured; rib pitting from when you foolishly tried to act as a human shield.”

“Rib pitting?”

“And that's before we even get to your compromised ligaments, both intertransverse and interior longitudinal… or…”

“How do you have room in your brain to remember all that?” Booth cut her off, deciding that he had heard enough about his past injuries. Past injuries that she was describing while they walked towards and through a crime scene full of FBI technicians, his subordinates, and the local cops. Even Agent Shaw was already there conversing with the poor guy who found the skull.

“I care about you, Booth, and the more abuse a body takes, the sooner it degenerates.”

“That's it? That's all you got for me?”

“Well, it can be a good thing. In some tribes men like you are elders. They don't have to hunt anymore.”

“Well, I want to go hunting. In fact, I have a date with Alex tonight.”

“But, Booth, we have a case,” Brennan complained.

“Yep and I have a date tonight that I’m not canceling… and a kid at home that needs entertaining during the weekend… Oh! And let’s not forget the hockey game on Saturday.”

“But…”

“Nope, no buts. Unless there’s a real emergency I’ll be off during the weekends, at least the months Parker lives with me. And he is gonna be a month with each of us, so that makes a lot of free weekends.”

Brennan crouched to examine the visible skull in the concrete. “Male, late twenties,” she said and got a probe out of her bag and put it down the skull’s mouth. Booth signaled Shaw to join them and watch, and the young agent practically ran to his position.

“What’s that?” Booth asked while he took his notepad out of his jacked and wrote down the information he needed.

“It’s a probe. I can see the impression of the back of the skull but not the actual remains. It appears that when the concrete set the bone was still there but somehow it disappeared in the meantime.” Brennan explained while looking intently at the screen that displayed the images captured by the probe.

“Okay. So, let me guess you want the whole slab of concrete shipped back to the Jeffersonian, right?”

“No. Don’t be absurd. Two-by-three-by-four-meter section will be fine. Shouldn’t weigh more than a ton,” Brennan corrected him and retrieved her equipment. “Booth, this case won’t be solved today. Do you think that you should take the weekend off?”

“Yep,” Booth said nodding to emphasize his words. “This is obviously not a recent murder, so unless we discover something that can’t wait or someone is at risk, I’m still taking the weekend off. The case will be waiting for me on Monday. You squints can do whatever you want, but even squints need days off.”

Booth gave his orders to Shaw and then walked back to his car followed by Brennan, who kept arguing against his plans for the weekend. She argued and complained all the way to the Jeffersonian. Yet Booth was thanking his lucky stars because she wasn’t listing his injuries anymore.

* * *

At the lab the slab of concrete was set on the platform, and the squint squad with Arastoo and Wendell, as the squinterns of the case, were ready to study it. Arastoo was the assigned squintern for the case following the rotation schedule. But when the lab was reopened and the internship program was reinstated, Cam approved some changes: Clark took responsibility of limbo and he must coordinate that with his rotations with Brennan, Fisher was assigned permanently to assist Clark in limbo, and Wendell was granted as much time in the lab as his classes allowed him by assigning him to any area of the lab, including limbo, that required an extra hand. Wendell was more than happy with the agreement; he was getting experience in every part of the lab: stomach content’s tests, DNA tests, the use of a mass spectrometer, limbo, you name it, and he could work on any case he wanted as long as he was not needed in another area, and with two squints working on limbo, the most time consuming area, he was available most of the time. This case was incredible, they didn’t even have a body, and he couldn’t pass the opportunity to work on it, so here he was too.

Hodgins vacuumed the dust left inside the concrete and preserved it for analysis. Meanwhile, Wendell and Arastoo prepared the fluoroscope scan and the contrast agent, a barium sulfate slurry, to be injected into the concrete to allow the scan to obtain a clear picture of the inside of the slab.

“Once we fluoroscope the slab we’ll know how much of this guy is inside,” Arastoo explained.

The slow speed of the test, the fluoroscope had to scan the slab and then the computer had to process the data, bored Angela immensely, so she jumped to her favorite activity: gossiping. “So rumor is Booth has a date with Alex tonight.”

“Rumor?” Cam asked glaring at the artist. Her face clearly questioned if there was a rumor or she was just going to create it.

“Oh, c’mon, Cam! He and Brennan were bickering about it when he left her here,” Angela defended herself. Anyone could have heard the conversation; it wasn’t that bad.

“Yes, he has a date tonight and he refuses to cancel even for the case. Nor is he canceling his free weekend,” Brennan chimed in on their conversation.

“Yeah, having Parker half of the time comes with cutting down his hours, Dr. B,” Hodgins explained her.

Brennan nodded accepting the explanation. “It is an appropriate adjustment. However, Booth has never put a date over a case before.”

“Well, if you ask me, Dr. Brennan, Alex is special. We have our first hockey game of the season Saturday afternoon and he invited her,” Wendell told them.

“Agent Studly is trying to impress the pretty doctor,” Angela commented in her flirty voice.

“Hockey is a violent game in which Booth could demonstrate strength, power, leadership… Those are qualities highly valuable for a female in search of a mate.”

“Like Angela said, Dr. Brennan, he wants to impress her,” Cam stated trying to end the discussion.

Brennan nodded agreeing with the coroner. “Now, we should return to the case. The image of the fluoroscopy is complete.”

“Looks like a human skeleton,” Hodgins said.

“It is a skeleton or at least the cast of one,” Arastoo agreed with him.

“So, the tissue must have decomposed before the concrete was poured,” Cam deduced.

“Why?” asked Hodgins.

“Because otherwise we’d be looking at a mold of a human body instead of the mold of a skeleton,” Brennan explained. Hodgins nodded accepting the very obvious reasoning, so obvious that he had missed it.

“What happened to the victim’s clothing?” Cam asked.

“Natural fibers like cotton would have decomposed to dust or tatters in say, I don’t know, four months,” Hodgins answered the coroner.

“But not bones,” Arastoo argued.

“If we can figure out what happened to the victim’s skeleton structure we may be able to figure out what happened to him,” Brennan deduced.

Arastoo put his attention back onto the portion of the skull that was still intact and found a dental tattoo: a hip-hop dancer doing a head spin.

“That could give us identity,” Cam said, “dental tattoos aren’t common.”

“I will find it extremely frustrating if the victim’s identity is all we can discern,” Brennan said.

“Well, unless you can take bone dust and turn it back into a full skeleton, this is all we’ve got to work with,” Cam retorted.

“Maybe Angela could use the fluoroscope images to recreate a virtual 3D model of the skeleton using the Angelatron,” Wendell suggested. “We have the cast let’s create the skeleton… well, virtual skeleton.”

“Or not,” Angela said suddenly having something to add to the discussion. “If I borrow the SLA from Archeology, I could grow a skeleton using the scans as the cast.”

“Sorry… Angela, did you just say that you can grow a skeleton?” Cam asked astonished.

“Yes, with 3D printing technology,” she answered. The rest of the team looked at her completely confused. They couldn’t see how she was going to print a skeleton, so she explained it better. “An SLA is a Stereo Lithography Apparatus, which basically is a machine that uses lasers to cure a photopolymer liquid resin into a hard plastic 3D model. I’ll use the data from the fluoroscopic scan to create a template and the SLA should create a plastic replica of the victim’s skeleton.”

“So you’re gonna grow a skeleton, right?” Cam asked a little phased from the description of the technique that the artist wanted to use.

“How accurate will it be?” Brennan asked.

“That’s for you and these two Mini-Brennans to find out, Sweetie,” Angela answered pointing to Wendell and Arastoo.

“At worst it will be as accurate as a fossil,” Brennan agreed to use this technique and Cam nodded to support the decision. “I find that I’m totally jazzed by your out-of-the-box lateral thinking,” Brennan said, visibly impressed by her friend’s idea.

* * *

 

While the squints did their best with what little they had, Booth used the dental tattoo to identify the victim. The guy was the only missing person of the D.C. area with a dental tattoo: Robert Pearson. From the missing persons report, Booth found that the guy was a dancer that studied at Cynthia Rinaldi’s ballet studio. He ordered Shaw to investigate Cynthia and Robert, check everything in the report and dig a little deeper in both of them. What she discovered was that the file was as good as give; there simply wasn’t much on the guy. He didn’t have a family or a job, and he hadn’t been in the studio for a whole year. The only new and interesting fact was that the teacher’s father owned a construction company, probably making her well versed in construction sites.

Knowing that he would be leaving for the whole weekend, he investigated the construction site and the company responsible for it, and prepared a file with all the photographs and information about the site that Angela would need to recreate the murder, or to discover if it happened in the site.

Two hours shy from his clock-out almost everything that he could do at the moment was done and the information was sent to the Jeffersonian. So he decided to take the almost out of the sentence and went with Brennan to the studio to interview Cynthia. They discovered that she blamed Robert for breaking her ankle and possibly ending her career as a ballet dancer.

“Do you think that she murdered Robert?” Brennan asked Booth while they walked back to the SUV.

“Don’t know. She’s strong and mean, so it’s possible,” the agent answered and climbed into the car. “Hurry up, Bones, I gotta take you to the lab, pick Parker from his art class, go home and get ready for my date.”

“Parker is enrolled in an art class?”

“Yep. He’s spent enough time with Angela to love art. Some months ago, during one of our Skype chats, he told me about an art thing at the Jeffersonian. They teach him some art techniques and once a month they take the kids to an exposition in the museum. He practically begged Rebecca and me to let him join it. He loves it!”

“That seems very educational, not as much as the science program, though. Is that Professor Andrea Moon’s program?”

“Yeah…that’s her, why? And why do you think that it’s less educational than the science program?” Brennan looked at him with a face that let him know that she thought that it was obvious. He didn’t like it, that face always made him feel stupid, so he answered thinking carefully about his words to prove her wrong, “Angela is an artist and she’s very valuable in the lab.”

“Yes, but a great part of the reason why she is so valuable is her ability with computer science.”

“Yes, but all that comes from the same place, Bones, her artistic mind. Without that, she wouldn’t create so many new computer thingies.”

Brennan nodded acknowledging his arguments, “I concede your point; I have no argument for that. And art can teach a lot about history.

“However, Professor Moon will be leaving the Jeffersonian next month and she’s already looking for someone to take her position.” Booth’s face fell hearing that news. It surely explained why all the parents had received an email summoning them to a meeting with the teacher after next Friday’s class. But no teacher means no program and Parker loved that program. “I’m sorry Booth, but I don’t know if the program would last long,” Brennan said apologetically. She was genuinely sorry; Parker was a good boy who deserved to have the class he wanted.

* * *

 

The partners burst into the lab to find the incredible spectacle of the lasers creating a replica of the victim’s skeleton. Angela was on the platform making sure that everything was running smoothly before leaving for the night. She was accompanied by Wendell and Arastoo. They were looking at the plastic goo with childlike expressions.

“Wow… you’re really growing a skeleton!” Booth exclaimed. His eyes were wide open in wonder.

“I feel like I’m in the future,” Arastoo said as impressed as the others. At least, he was capable of speech. Wendell was so enraptured by it that he couldn’t say a word.

“Time travel is impossible, Mr. Vaziri. But I know exactly what you mean,” Brennan commented climbing onto the platform too.

She was soon followed by Cam, who even if suitably impressed decided to show it with her natural and charming sarcasm. “Wow. If you’re taking orders I’d like a six foot four, 37 year-old male with a good income and no mommy issues.”

“Sorry, Cam, but Mr. Plastic-guy wouldn’t be very talkative and Paul wouldn’t like to share you with him,” Booth joked.

“You could grab Studly again,” Angela suggested in a very flirty way.

“Nope. I’m 38 and currently unavailable. Sorry Cam, no Booth, no Mr. Plastic, you stick with Dr. Lady-parts…you shouldn’t have complaints,” the agent answered emphasizing his little jab about complaints.

“Now, now, Big Guy, don’t mess with my fantasies, stop mocking me about Paul’s profession, and go to your date!” the coroner retorted smiling.

Booth laughed, waved to the squints goodbye, and walked away. He was half way to the door when something occurred to him. “Angela, could I ask you a favor? It doesn’t have to be permanent, just a temporary solution… Professor Moon is leaving and I’m not sure if there’s someone taking the kids class and…” He was babbling and he knew it; the difficult part was stopping it.

“I’ve already told Goodman that I’ll be taking care of that class, Booth. Cam told me how much Parker likes it,” the artist told him with a big smile cutting his ramblings. “Now go. Arriving late on the first date is very wrong.”

Booth thanked her and practically ran to the door. The sooner he picked up Parker the sooner he would be picking up Alex.

“Oh, Studly, I’ll be watching that impress-the-girl game tomorrow!” Angela called after him.

* * *

 

At seven that night, Booth was at Alex’s door looking dapper in jeans and his good black dress shirt. He rang the bell and Alex opened the door in a, in Booth’s opinion, gorgeous red dress.

“Hi, Booth,” she smiled at him. He smiled back and stared at her. Yes, he stared. He’s a guy and he does admire a beautiful woman in a beautiful dress. “I’ll take my jacket and purse and we can go.”

“Take your time,” he answered still staring, now at her retreating back. Practically his whole attention was on her, except the little part that told him that he was being watched. “Why do I feel like I’m being watched?” he asked Alex when she returned to the door ready to leave for their date.

“Probably ‘cause Susan is glued to the peephole to get a good look at you,” she answered smirking. “Maya and Sarah are with her, and she has spent days trying to get me to introduce you to her as payment for babysitting but I refused. Of course it won’t work forever, but I won’t allow Susan to scare you out of dating me. You’re the first guy that has asked me out in almost two years since Kevin died.”

“I don’t scare easily, Alex,” the agent answered smirking at her, “I was a Ranger and now I’m an FBI Special Agent… Special!”

“Don’t remind me. Of all the guys I could like, I like the one with the dangerous job.” Alex smirked trying to let him know that she was honest. She wasn’t dating him just because he asked but because she liked him.

“Oh, you like me… I hadn’t noticed,” he joked. “I like you too,” he added more serious. He helped her into her jacket; intertwined his arm with hers and directed her towards his car. They walked there, smiling like fools, and Booth opened the passenger’s door making a flourish with his arms. “Your carriage awaits milady.”

Alex laughed wholeheartedly and got into the car. “Oh, my… Thank you, kind sir.”

* * *

 

For the squints Saturday came with a plastic replica of the victim’s skeleton ready to be examined. They were all very impressed with the accuracy of it, and they let Angela know it.

“The detail is remarkable,” Arastoo praised her with a childlike look of wonder. Wendell nodded and whistled to show his appreciation.

“Thank you.”

“It's even flexible at the joints where the tendons and ligaments were replicated,” Cam commented as impressed as the other two.

“But can we get anything useful from it?” the artist asked a little doubtful.

“The victim had turned-out hips and high arches. That, along with the muscle attachments at the shoulders and hips, confirms that he was a ballet dancer,” Arastoo explained proving that they indeed could get something useful from the replica.

“Okay, Arastoo, do you think that you could put tissue markers with enough precision for me to do a facial reconstruction?” Arastoo and Wendell nodded, both thinking that the replica was good enough for that. “Then I’d be able to confirm ID. There is no dental record on Robert Pearson. The only thing we have to ID him is the dental tattoo and Booth would want something more to confirm it.”

“There are nicks on the lateral and posterior surfaces,” Wendell added and Cam bent down over it trying to see them.

“Okay, why don't you just flip it over so we can get a better look?” Angela pointed out the obvious.

“We never flip over a real skeleton,” Arastoo answered somehow a little shocked with the suggestion.

“Ah, lucky for us, this is a replica. Come on. Grab a limb,” Cam ordered and everyone grabbed the plastic replica and they turned it around.

“Okay,” a chorus of squints said.

“Hey, that was kind of fun,” Angela said smiling. She loved this case; it was very much up her alley.

“These nicks suggest that he was stabbed,” Wendell said pointing to the nicks in the victim’s back.

“Or impaled,” Cam corrected him bluntly. “We haven't proven murder yet, Mr. Bray. It's possible that the victim blundered into a construction site, fell into the foundation, and impaled himself on rebar.”

Brennan joined them then, and the three bone squints spent the day studying the plastic replica while Angela did the facial reconstruction. They discovered that the nicks on the victim’s back were congruent with impaling but that none of them suggested cause of death, and Arastoo discovered that Robert used to spin his head on a thin cardboard on the street because he had remodeled circular microfractures on the skull.

For Cam, the later coupled with the positive ID from Angela meant that the guy was a street dancer in Kalorama Park. It gave Booth enough to work with on Monday, so she called it a day and threw the squints out of the lab. Wendell was already leaving to get to his game; Angela had made it clear that the Hodgins’ would be leaving for that same game with the intern too. Keeping Arastoo seemed cruel so she did a little convincing and dragged both the intern and his professor out of the lab and into the world of hockey.

* * *

 

At the ice rink the players were warming up and chatting a little while the squints were seated on the stands and Parker watched his father from the barrier. Booth was quite happy to have them there especially when he saw that Cam was with them. He knew that the coroner from the Bronx would control them; she would make sure that they don’t scare Alex off.

Alex entered the building with Sarah in her carrier and Maya bouncing more than walking by her side.

“Mom, where’s Booth?” Maya asked happily. She was looking around trying to find him.

“He’s there, on the ice,” Alex answered pointing to the players on the rink. Maya smiled and bounced towards the ice.

Alex called her to stop running and return to her side. The girl stopped reluctantly, and looking at her mother, she shouted, “Come on, mom! Booth’s there!” Alex laughed at her enthusiasm but nonetheless she picked up her pace.

Booth saw them, waved at them from the middle of the rink, and then skated to the door so he could greet them. Maya mimicked giving him a big kiss and Booth crouched down to her level to return it kissing her soundly on the cheek. When he straightened up again, Alex spoke. “Don’t I get a kiss too?” Booth had always been a smart guy, not squint smart but smart nonetheless, and he wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to kiss his girl, so he gave Alex a soft peck on the lips.

“So, you ready to impress the ladies, Booth?” Alex asked knowingly in a flirty voice.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying, can you?” He gave her his charm smile, just in case.

“Nope. I can’t. But don’t worry I’ll be suitably impressed.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s hockey,” she answered as if it was obvious.

Booth smiled at that, and pointed to where the squints, and Parker whenever he finally decides to join them, were seated. He asked her to sit with them and after one more kiss, this one for luck, she turned around and started walking towards them.

“Wait mom! I have to kiss him luck too,” Maya said and ran back to the agent.

Booth crouched again so that the little girl could kiss him, and received a big, sonorous kiss. “Thanks, Maya. With so much luck, I’m gonna win for sure now.”

* * *

 

The squints observed the exchange from their seats with some amusement. “She’s very cute,” Hodgins commented on the little girl. “And her mom is hot.”

Angela smacked him upside the head but agreed with a nod. “Maya seems to like Booth very much.”

Brennan looked warily at Cam. “Aren’t you worried that Dr. Foster is looking for a male to take the role of father?”

Cam glared at her trying to convey that those kinds of comments weren’t appropriate, but then she thought that she probably was just phrasing her worry in her very squinty and offensive way. “Dr. Brennan, of course Alex is looking for a father for her girls but not in the way you’re implying. She’s looking for a good man to share her life with and that person must be a father for her daughters. That man must understand that he’s expected to take both roles: boyfriend and father.”

“Sweetie, I know you mean well but please be careful with how you say things, okay?” Angela admonished gently, “Booth likes Alex very much and we shouldn’t offend her.”

Brennan nodded accepting her friend’s lecture. “The fact that Booth has developed such strong feelings for Dr. Foster in such a short amount of time worries me. I am worried that her intentions aren’t as good as Booth’s.”

Angela, Cam and Hodgins looked at her dubiously, thinking that it was probably a manifestation of a new found and misinterpreted jealousy but they said nothing.

Hodgins answered her statement as if he took it at face value, “Dr. B., Alex likes Booth very much and while it is a necessary condition for her to date him, it isn’t a sufficient condition. Her daughters must like him too.”

“I see. She brings her offspring to their dates not because she wants Booth to take the role of father but because she needs to ascertain that he can take said role in addition to the role of her mate before she definitively accepts him as her mate.” The squints nodded. Her anthropological explanation was ten times longer and more complicated, but it was exactly what Hodgins and Cam had told her. “Thanks, Hodgins.”

“Well, mate is very weird word to use, Dr. Brennan, but you’re partially right. Before I dated him I needed to know that my daughters liked him. In the same way, Booth needed to see that Parker liked me, and that’s why we went for a snack with the kids after the Dude’s show. However, today they’re here because Maya wanted to see him and because I don’t like getting a babysitter unnecessarily,” Alex answered firmly in a voice that would have told anyone that Brennan was getting a free pass for this one, and that it was an unique occasion.

“Hi, Alex,” Angela said a little embarrassed at being caught talking about the woman.

“Hi, Angela, Hodgins, Cam,” Alex greeted the squints ignoring the gossip and Brennan’s comments. “And you are?”

“Arastoo Vaziri. Dr. Foster, I presume,” the squintern said as polite as possible.

“Alex, please. It’s okay if I call you Arastoo?” He nodded smiling at the woman and that seemed to settle the introductions part of the evening.

“So, Alex, just for the sake of gossip, how was your date with Booth yesterday?” Angela decided to get some conversation going. Cam and Hodgins got near to hear everything and Alex smiled at how much gossip lovers the squints were.

Angela’s need for gossip seemed to break the awkward moment and they watched the game in friendly companionship.

Booth’s team won, of course. He was very motivated and it showed.  The other guys of the team couldn’t stop themselves and commented on it mocking Booth about it in a friendly way when they were leaving the locker room.

“Bring that hot mama next time, would ya? We’ll beat those annoying metro cops into the ice,” one of them said in a very saucy way.

Booth was ready to verbally smack the guy down when he saw Alex standing just a few steps away shaking her head to stop him. “I may be a hot mama but I can make you a eunuch in two seconds flat wearing my four inch heels, so don’t call me that. You aren’t allowed to do it.”

“Does that mean that Booth can?” someone else asked. He too was silenced by her glare and they finally calmed down. That allowed her to talk to Wendell and Booth, which was why she was there.

“The ‘squints’ want to go for dinner. They wanted me to tell you that they’ll meet us at Sid’s,” she said pulling a confused face to let him know that she knew nothing about the place or Sid himself.

Wendell told them that they would meet them there and walked out, giving the couple some privacy. Booth grabbed her hand and pulled her towards him for a kiss, and it was then that he noticed that something was wrong. “What’s the problem, Alex?” he asked gently and making eye contact with her. He never let her hand go. He wanted to make her feel wanted.

Alex hesitated at first to talk, but she knew that they weren’t going to move from the spot until she either told him the truth or promised to tell him later. She saw Cam waiting at the stands with the three kids and knew that she didn’t have all day, so she decided to speak. “Do you think that I’m trying to trap you into being the father of my ‘offspring’?” she asked in a somewhat sardonic way.

Booth saw red, that sentence could only come from one place: Brennan. He took a deep breath before speaking because Alex didn’t deserve to bear his anger that was directed at someone else, “I like your ‘offspring’ very much and I know that you are a packaged deal. I either date the three beautiful ladies or none. But no, I don’t think you’re trying to trap me into it. I don’t doubt your intentions, Alex.”

Alex nodded and Booth pulled her once again to his body to hug her trying to reassure her. After some seconds, he pulled away but held her hand again. Then, he started walking to where Cam and the kids waited for them.

After that, the dinner at Wong Fu’s was a relaxed affair. Sid liked Alex and her daughters very much and treated them and Parker to a special chocolate dessert, which the women at the table promptly demanded to try.

The only thing that shadowed the evening was the tension between Booth and Brennan. Booth was angry at her and he really didn’t have the energy to play nice so he decided to just ignore her as much as possible. He didn’t speak a word to her, and he was thankful when the squints didn’t force it and just acted as if the tension wasn’t there. It allowed him to enjoy the evening while still ignoring his partner’s hurtful words for the moment, but it also told him that her accusations had been done in front of everyone. He was extremely angry but he wasn’t going to ruin the night. He’ll wait; the time to let his anger out would come soon, though.


	11. The Bones That Weren't And Mending Fences

**Chapter 10:**

**The Bones That Weren't And Mending Fences**

**Timeline:** October, 2010; end of fourth week upon the team's return to D.C.

 **Season/episode:** 6x05 - "The Bones That Weren't"

* * *

The squints returned to the lab on Monday, after a well-deserved Sunday off. They really loved gossip and if it was about someone else's romantic relationship or sex life they loved it even more. So Alex, her daughters, and Booth were the only topic of conversation outside the dead guy. Angela even conducted a survey asking all of the squints and squinterns she found if they thought that Booth had already slept with Alex or not.

Somehow, that brought up the argument that Brennan and Booth had about Alex after Logan's case. Angela was a little ashamed to admit that at the time she would have sided with Brennan, without thinking about how insulting her comments must have felt to the agent. However, after her conversation with Cam, Angela could see the agent's side of the story too and she could be happy for him even if she was sad for her best friend. Angela was a little bit angry with Brennan too because she seemed hell bent to run away from love and happiness, even when it meant hurting or insulting Booth, or leaving the country for months. She understood that Brennan was hurt and she probably felt lonely but it was per her own decision to reject Booth that she was alone and the way she was dealing with it wasn't right in her opinion. But even if Angela was angry and planed on talking with Brennan about it, a bigger part of her was extremely sad for the anthropologist because she thought that Alex was _it_ for Booth, and that Brennan had lost her chance. She was sad and afraid for Brennan, and it was making her angry. She knew she was overreacting a tad but she couldn't help it. She had missed Brennan too and she was hurt by her lack of communication too. She needed to talk to Brennan and force her to wake up to her own reality before there was no reality for her to wake up to. Brennan won't get Booth back, that much was obvious, but maybe she could get someone else.

Setting that aside, Angela was also happy, very happy for Booth so she wanted to know everything that there was to know about the pretty doctor, as Caroline seemed so fond of calling her. Of course, she did her best to find as much information as she could, but she was still empty handed when Cam, really tired of her continuous prodding, bribed her to shut up.

"Booth was going to have lunch with Alex today, but he has a meeting with Cullen. He asked me to have lunch with her. If you stop it right now I'll let you come," Cam had almost begged. Angela made a show of shutting up and closing an imaginary zipper over her mouth. "Thanks, now can we go back to our dead guy?"

Nonetheless, even with the squints gossiping to their hearts' content, they were able to advance a lot in the case.

Hodgins analyzed the bone dust and discovered that the reason behind the disappearance of the victim's skeleton was a bone-eating fungus introduced into the bone before he died. He crosschecked the CDC's infectious diseases map and found an outbreak of the fungus in Kalorama Park approximately six months ago, concurring with the murder date. He also found some bronze particulates that he couldn't explain but that he could probably tie to the murder weapon when they find it.

Angela used the file that Booth gave her to recreate the construction site before the concrete was poured. Her simulation showed that Robert was pushed, or fell, from one of the bridges of the structure and on top of the rebar where his body was impaled. This explained all the nicks in the victim's back minus one. The unexplained nick was on the T6 and its trajectory showed clearly that the murder weapon punctured the lung, which made it cause of death and the way Hodgins' fungus was introduced into the bone marrow. The body was obviously yanked off the rebar, moved, and shoved underneath the plastic sheeting of the foundation.

From Booth's file she knew that the construction company that put the rebar went bust, so the place spent months fenced and only when a new company bought the project, the foundation was poured. By then the body was only a skeleton and the skull was lifted by the concrete almost to the surface where it was found, and the rest of it was devoured by the fungus.

They had finally proven that Robert's death was murder and so far everything pointed to Kalorama Park. So Hodgins and the two squinterns went to the park in search of a murder weapon and a source for the bronze particulates and the fungus.

* * *

Once in Kalorama Park, they went through all the dumpsters separating the trash bags coming from the restrooms from the others, and testing samples here and there using the portable kit. They discovered that the source of the fungus was the trash from the park and that the janitor picked it up for them. Seeing Derrick picking trash with a garbage picker, they thought that they had probably found the murder weapon too, and decided to take it to the lab.

"Hey, guys, could you help me?" Wendell asked on their way back to the van with the samples and the picker. "Evelyn is cool with being my friend and we've been having lunches, coffee… but always like friends. She doesn't want to date me, but she likes me, I can tell."

"So, she likes you but doesn't want to date you… why?" Hodgins asked his friend.

"I don't know. That's what I have to figure out… well, that and how to change her mind."

"Maybe Agent Booth doesn't agree. He is her boss," Arastoo suggested.

"Nuh nuh. He told me to be a gentleman, but he hadn't opposed."

"But does she know that?" Hodgins supplied. Wendell nodded, acknowledging that it was possible that Evelyn feared, even if unnecessarily, Booth's reaction.

"Maybe you should talk with Agent Booth or Agent Shaw. I've seen Evelyn eating with her more than once; she may know why she rejected you," Arastoo added.

"Thanks, man. I'll do that," Wendell said showing real gratefulness to the other squintern. He now, at least, knew where to start.

* * *

While the Bug Man and the squinterns were in Kalorama Park, and Booth was in that meeting that forced him to change his plans with Alex, Cam and Angela joined Alex at the Founding Fathers for lunch.

"Doctor Brennan isn't coming?" Alex asked them after the greetings.

"No, she said that she has too much work to do," Angela answered politely. She knew that Brennan had used an excuse to avoid lunch with Alex, but she couldn't force her to join them and at the same time she didn't want to make Alex feel unwelcomed by Booth's friends.

Alex looked at the other two women faces carefully for a second and then very slowly she started speaking. "Yeah. So you're saying that she argued with me about Booth's ribs, she argued with him about how I was too friendly with him, she practically ran away after a polite but _rushed_ hello at the end of the Dude's show, she pulled that anthropological lecture about mates on Saturday, and now she's buried with work, right?" Her complete disbelief was obvious in her voice. "Let's get the BS out of the way, okay? She's jealous and I'm not angry at her so you don't need to defend her. Booth is not the kind of guy that cheats and he obviously has a past. So do I. You don't need to defend him either, so let's leave that and have an enjoyable lunch. I would like to know Booth's friends better."

Cam and Angela stared at each other in astonishment. Not only Alex was well aware of Brennan moods, but she sensed that Booth and Brennan had a history. Yet she didn't seem intimidated by it.

"They were never together," Angela rushed to assure the doctor and she would have probably said more if Alex hadn't cut her off.

"Please, Angela, stop. At the moment I don't care for Booth's past relationships, and when I feel that we should deal with that, I'll ask Booth about it."

"That's good," Cam said politely. "But can I ask you something?" Alex nodded. "I… don't take this the wrong way… but Booth's my friend and he hasn't had the best of luck with women recently, so I gotta ask…" Alex stared at Cam just waiting for her question so the coroner took a deep breath and finally asked it, "you said it yourself, you have a past… aren't you scared of Booth's job?"

"I see. Considering my past, you fear that I'll get scared and back off of our relationship." Cam nodded, locked her eyes with Alex's, and waited for her answer. If Alex wanted to leave the bullshit aside, they would do so. Finally, the pediatrician answered slowly. "The truth, Cam, is that I am scared. I am scared shitless. Does that mean that I'm gonna miss out on him? Am I gonna let fear rule my life? No. That's not who I am. I would love to date a boring accountant who's safe behind a desk all day, eats healthy stuff, goes to his doctor regularly for checkups, and always respects the speed limit… but I would never feel all goo-goo over him because I like overgrown kids inside of guys with dangerous jobs, or so it seems… I'll have to live with that, which for me means holding onto him with both hands. I'm not prone to run screaming like a little girl… Good enough for the Bronx coroner?"

Cam nodded and smirked. Caroline was definitively right: Alex was the type of woman that Booth needed.

Angela agreed with Cam completely. Now she was sure that Booth's heart was in good hands so she felt it was time to divert the conversation to less serious topics. Therefore, it was time for the three to get to know each other.

Cam and Angela wanted to befriend Alex for Booth's benefit. They didn't want to scare her off or make her uncomfortable with the squints. So they left the seriousness aside and had a very enjoyable lunch talking about numerous things, including Booth. Angela and Cam told Alex some funny anecdotes about the agent, and the doctor reciprocated giving them the details they wanted about her date with Booth and that she had refused to give at the ice rink with the guys present.

* * *

Booth and Brennan went to Kalorama Park after Booth's meeting to talk to the performers. Booth let his gut choose who to talk with because his only intention was to get a feeling for the victim's life and his acquaintances in the area.

The partners were talking with Beverly Houle, a singer who was somehow partnered with the victim; and Johnny Shade, a magician who liked to take things that weren't his a little too much, in Booth's opinion; when Derrick Price, the janitor of the park joined in to give his opinion about the victim. They all seemed to agree in Robert being well liked by everyone in the park with only one exception: Derrick informed them that Robert fought with another dancer, Russell Leonard, over their spot in the park.

They went to talk with Russell and found a screwdriver in his backpack. Brennan thought that it could be the murder weapon, and Booth was already annoyed after talking with the musician and the magician, so he arrested him and decided to solve it later in the Hoover. He could let Shaw talk with the guy; it will give her experience and save him from dealing with the performers longer than the strictly necessary.

To top it all, they saw Tyler Milford, a weird guy dressed like a bronze statue and who only spoke spurring Shakespeare's quotes. They took him too to compare the paint that covered him with the bronze particulates found in the victim's bone dust.

When they finally returned to the Hoover, crazy-statue-guy and whiner-dancer on tow, Booth was more than a little annoyed and ready to leave for the day. He sent the screwdriver and the bronze sample to the Jeffersonian with Brennan, and ordered Sweets and Shaw to talk with both suspects.

He was tired, annoyed, and late to Parker's hockey practice if he wasn't fast. He was not dealing with the crazy people. He was leaving for the day, and going to coach Parker's hockey team. So ignoring Sweets' questions about the crazy guy, he wanted to know as much as possible about him, and any other agent who tried to stop him, he left the Hoover as if the damn place was on fire.

* * *

Next morning, to everyone's surprise, Booth burst into the Hoover whistling happily.

"You look happy, sir," Evelyn told her boss smiling.

"Oh, I am, Evelyn; I am. Alex came to Parker's practice yesterday, said she couldn't cheer one Booth and not the other one. We had a very enjoyable afternoon."

"Glad to hear that, sir." Booth smiled at her in silent thanks, and went into his office but was immediately interrupted by Sweets.

The shrink came into the agent's office way too excited for a Tuesday morning. "Booth, I talked with Milford and I believe that he suffers from an untreated dissociative disorder, wherein the only way he can communicate is through Shakespeare."

Booth glared at him.

"Sweets!" he shouted seeing that the glare wasn't enough to shut up the guy. He didn't calm down, he was practically bouncing in the spot, but at least he was silent after that. "Now, Sweets, is Shaw in already?" Sweets nodded fervently. "Then call her to my office and you can both tell me what you found yesterday."

Sweets bounced out of the office and back in again with Shaw in less than five minutes. "As I was saying Milford suffers…"

"Milford is crazy, Sweets. I wanna know what you got from him not a diagnosis."

"Robert was a thief, a pickpocketer, and he had a partner," Shaw said cutting off the psychologist before he started with his verbal diarrhea. She wanted to impress her boss, and she had sat through Sweets' interview with the crazy guy to do so. Then after a short pause to enjoy Sweets' pout, she continued her report. "Russell is not our guy. He and Robert fought over the dancing spot but they were friends. That's what he said and I believe him, sir."

"Okay. So the partner is our best suspect. Check the database: who has a record and who doesn't… and contact metro police, see when the pickpocketing happened. Pay special attention to the magician, he liked other people's things a little too much; and the singer, she and Robert were a performance team, maybe they were a thief team too."

"Yes, sir," Shaw said and left the office to do her job.

"Can I help her?" Sweets said with enthusiasm.

"Do whatever you please, but don't annoy me!" Sweets left the office bouncing, happy to be allowed to help, and very fast, before he could annoy Booth further. He knew that annoying Booth too much could be very dangerous.

* * *

At the lab, Hodgins tested the bronze paint from Milford and the garbage picker, and Brennan compared the weapon to the injury.

"Well, I can tell you that the bronze particulates didn't come from the paint on the Shakespearian loony tune. But they came from the picker," Hodgins stated.

"I'm reasonably certain that the picker is the murder weapon," Brennan added.

"Booth called to tell us that Robert was a pickpocket, maybe one of his victims got angry," Cam suggested. "The problem is proving it. There are no useful fingerprints on the murder weapon and there weren't on the plastic sheet either."

"Maybe there are. I think that we are looking at the wrong place," Brennan corrected.

Brennan and the squinterns prepared a little simulation on the platform, and Brennan demonstrated with Hodgins as the cadaver how the murderer left a whole palm printed on the plastic sheet when he shoved the body under it. Checking the sheet again, and with a pretty cool experiment using gold, Hodgins got the print.

* * *

With that hand print and the records Shaw pulled out for Booth, they solved the case. The pickpocketing partner of Robert was Beverly Houle, the signer. There was no pickpocketing while they were performing. Booth theorized that Robert betrayed Beverly, probably not only in their criminal business but also at a romantic level, and she killed him in rage. But they had to prove it, so Booth called in Beverly and Cynthia, the ballet teacher, to the Hoover and orchestrated a little scene to get their fingerprints for comparison. Once they got Beverly's fingerprints the case was solved, they were a match for the print from the plastic sheet.

As tradition demanded, the squints and Booth met in the Founding Fathers to celebrate. Brennan and Booth arrived earlier than the rest, and Booth couldn't stop himself from talking about the comment the anthropologist made at the ice rink on Saturday.

"Bones, I want to talk to you about something… about what you said about Alex at the rink…" He had calmed down since then; he had been able to think about it and now he felt they could solve the issue. He knew Brennan had wanted to protect him, even if she had done it in a way that angered him, and her intentions counted a hell of a lot for him.

"You mean when I expressed my fear that Dr. Foster's intentions were not as good as yours?"

"Yeah, Bones, that's exactly what I mean. You implied that she was just using me and our relationship to give her daughters a father. You implied that I was just a means to an end, and with it that her feelings for me were lacking, inexistent or even faked. It was insulting, and I won't have you or anyone else insulting Alex."

Booth could see that Brennan wanted to say something, but he stopped her raising his hand. "No, let me finish. You like facts, and I have a bunch of facts to give you. Once you have them, you can make an informed decision about Alex; without them you only have a half cooked theory.

"First, it's difficult for me to find a woman that is really willing to be with me. This has been proved numerous times: Rebecca didn't want me, you didn't want me, Hannah left as soon as she understood, _really understood_ , the kind of commitment that she needed to make.

"Second, Parker is the most important person in my life, and most women I've been with couldn't or wouldn't understand that, or they simply didn't want to. Proven by Hannah running away as far and as fast as she could as soon as I got half custody. On the other hand, Alex understands it, she really gets that Parker must come first, and that he has to accept her, just like her daughters must accept me for our relationship to work. In fact, she came yesterday to Parker's practice. I mentioned it to her in passing the other day after my game and she just came, without me having to ask or invite her… she just came because she knew that it was important to him and therefore it was important to me.

"Now, I know it's difficult to adjust to a new situation, but we both need to do it, Bones. I hate saying this, and if you tell him I've said it I'll… let's just say that payback will be hell, but Sweets was right: we spent way too much time together for only being friends and partners. Now that has to change, and we'll need some time to get used to it. But I told you before our trips that things needed to change, what we had wasn't healthy for anyone involved, we need more than just friendship in our lives… at least I do.

"I honestly think that Alex could be what I'm looking for. She already knows that being an agent or a soldier is not only a pretty uniform, that it comes with big baggage, she gets that Parker must come first for me, and she's working on wining him over, she's willing to have a long term, committed relationship… and I like her very much, Bones. I really, really like her… and sometimes she does something like going to Parker's practice or babysitting him today… I know some people may find that unimportant, but for me… it makes me care for her even more… But the best thing, Bones, the best thing is that I can see how she feels the same way. You want something to back that up, right? Well, that's easy, Bones, her husband died in the war, and she's taking a very big risk dating me. I have a dangerous job, and with her history, she should want to date an accountant, but she's dating me. That should tell you enough. But if it doesn't and you still have questions or doubts, then please come to me directly. Don't do what you did on Saturday, 'cause Alex heard you and she was afraid that I thought the same… not to mention that it was insulting to her. I know that you were just trying to watch my back, but she didn't. And even knowing you had good intentions, I didn't like the way you did it, so just please come to me next time. I promise that I'll listen to you, and that we'll talk about whatever is bothering you."

Seeing that Booth had finished, she took a moment to think through everything he had said, and then nodded accepting his conditions. "I know that you have strong feelings for her, and that is why I was worried that she didn't share them, but your evidence points in the opposite direction. It seems that she reciprocates them. However, I will continue to watch your back until I'm completely certain of it."

"That's okay, Bones, My phone is always on, and I'll always get your call, and listen to your concerns. We are friends and partners; we have each other's backs. Always will."

Brennan smiled at him, knowing that she still had her friend. Things were different now, but they will continue to be friends, and that was enough for her. She had dreamt about them being together while she was in Maluku, that was true; but it was also true that she didn't believe that monogamous, long term, committed, romantic relationships could work, at least not for her. So she'd let that dream go, like she let him go when she rejected him last year, and be friends with him, because that was a sure thing, that was a relationship that she could trust.

They let their conversation die there, and got into a comfortable silence while they drank and waited for the squints to join them in their little party. They didn't make them wait long, though, and soon the Hodgins', Cam, Wendell and Arastoo were there.

However, the celebration wasn't long; Booth needed to return home to Parker because Alex needed to take her daughters home, and left early, which prompted everyone else to call it a night. Still in the short time they were there, Booth was happy to learn that Angela and Cam were working on befriending Alex, and that Hodgins greatly approved of her.

He also had some time to talk to Wendell; the poor guy was very confused about Evelyn's attitude, so he threw him a bone, took him outside before leaving, and gave him a little clue about what he suspected was the problem. He knew his clue had been a little cryptic and left Wendell a little confused still, but he was a smart guy, he'd get it soon enough.

All things considered Booth left the bar pretty happy and relaxed.

He had helped Wendell, and had given him and Evelyn an opportunity, something that he thought was good for everyone involved. Evelyn thought that he didn't know her little secret, but he wasn't stupid, he was a cop, a very good cop, and he had a habit of checking his subordinates himself, not just trust human resources, so he knew why Evelyn and Shaw had bonded so fast, and why Evelyn had rejected the squintern.

He also left knowing that the squints approved of Alex, and were even trying to befriend her. Their support, he admitted, felt really good. It felt especially good in Angela's and Hodgins' case because he had expected to lose Angela's friendship for moving on from Brennan, and with her Hodgins too. If he was honest, he had expected to keep only Cam and Wendell, share Sweets' custody, and lose the rests of the squints to Momma-Bones.

The best part of the night was the feeling that his friendship with Brennan was finally on the mend, though.

He needed more than friendship in his life, he wanted to have love too, and share his life with someone; and he knew that Brennan understood it. She only wanted friendship with him. It was her prerogative, it was okay, but it also meant that things had to change. They needed to become only friends and partners. He had explained this to her before their trips, and again when he explained how he understood love to her with that metaphor about plants, but until now it hadn't sunk in.

Now that it had finally sunk in, they could work on repairing their friendship. There were some issues that they will have to talk about, and he was still hurt because she had never trusted him with her heart, but he was sure that they could work all those issues out, and get their strong friendship back. With his feelings for Brennan being now a mark over his heart, and his feelings for Alex growing every day, he was at peace with it; he was content; it was all he wanted.

So he left the party happy, knowing that everything in his life was working out pretty well. Hell! Even Sweets and Daisy had skipped the celebratory drink, which had saved him from Daisy's babbling, and Sweets questioning. His baby duck still didn't know anything about Alex so he had avoided being interrogated, but he would have found had he been here.

So, yeah, Booth could consider this a perfect evening.


	12. The Shallow In The Deep And Feeling Stupid

**Chapter 11:**

**The Shallow In The Deep And Feeling Stupid**

**Timeline:** Last week of October, 2010 (fifth week upon the team's return to D.C.)

 **Season/episode:** 6x06 - "The Shallow in the Deep"

* * *

Booth arrived to his apartment, and opened the door carefully.

When that afternoon his babysitter had called him to tell him that she was sick and wouldn't be able to take care of Parker, he was going to forego the celebratory drink with the squints. However, Alex had pleasantly surprised him by offering to stay with Parker and the girls at his home. He had argued against it saying that she didn't need to do it, that her girls may be unsettled or that their schedule would be thrown off by the new environment, but finally Alex had told him that it would give her some time with his son, and it will help their relationship. She had looked really eager to do it, and her smile had undone him, so he had caved and accepted her help with a heartfelt thanks and a kiss.

Now, it was late and the kids should be asleep so, not wanting to wake them up, he was entering his apartment as silently as possible. He was using his Army training to avoid making noise.

He closed the door behind him without making a sound, left his weapon in the safe just as silently, and walked into his living room. The scene he found stopped him in his tracks. Sarah was in her carrier; while Maya and Parker were one on each side of Alex on his couch, and they were all sound asleep. He could do nothing but to smile a big toothy smile at the sweet scene in front of him. His beautiful, strong girlfriend was fast asleep with a smile on her elegant lips holding protectively to her body not only her daughter but his son too.

He felt his feelings for the doctor grow all over again, and fixed the warmhearted scene to his memory. After some moments, he decided that he had indulged on that warm feeling long enough, and started working on the sleeping arrangements. They really couldn't sleep like that the whole night.

He took off his suit jacket, and left it on the armchair. He then very carefully picked up Parker without waking anyone up. He took him to his own room, wordlessly thanking Alex for making him change into his PJs, and tucked him in bed. He kissed his brow tenderly, and left the room closing the door softly.

Once he was back in the living room, he proceeded with the risky business that was moving the Foster family to his room. Yes, moving a small sleeping kid is a high risk: if they wake up they cry, and wake up the entire house.

He first pushed the carrier to his room and parked it at one side with the baby still resting peacefully in it. He opened the bed, and getting some extra pillows from his wardrobe, he created a barrier to stop the babies from falling from the bed.

That done, he went back to the living room. He scooped Maya in his arms, and took her to his room and into his bed without disturbing her sleep. He saw that she was wearing some pink pajamas but no diaper, so he assumed that she was potty trained and put her on one side of the bed to make sure that she could run to the bathroom if she needed it. He also pushed the small pink lion that he had found with her on the couch back into her hands, because it must have been the stuffed animal she liked to sleep with.

Once more he repeated the trip to and from the living room, but this time he left on his bed the shoe-less, clad in jeans and t-shirt mom. He made sure that Alex was on the other side of the bed, leaving the middle for Sarah. And last but not least, he got Sarah out of her carrier, changed her diaper, and put her between her sister and mother on the bed with the purple dragon that she had been holding onto while in the carrier.

He then made sure that they were all properly covered by the blanket, took some sleeping clothes, and left the room through the bathroom door switching off the light.

Once in the bathroom, he made a quick job of his night routine, changed into the sweat pants and t-shirt that he had just picked, and went back to the living room. He left the door connecting the bathroom and his room slightly open, and the bathroom light on to make sure that Maya could move around safely though.

Once he was sure that everyone was comfortable and safe, he threw himself on the couch, and fell asleep almost instantly feeling more at peace than he had felt in a long time.

* * *

The sun came out for Alex in a foreign room, in a strange bed, and with only a pink lion and a purple dragon for companions. The stuffed animals told her that her two girls had been there recently, and the noise of plates and cutlery told her that they probably were in the kitchen. Feeling a little more awake, she looked around the room and correctly deduced that she was in Booth's room. She groaned in embarrassment realizing that she must have fallen asleep on his couch shortly after the kids did, and that Booth probably carried her and her daughters to his bed.

Thinking about what she knew of his apartment, she remembered that he didn't have a spare room, meaning that he must have slept on the couch. She groaned again, and this time she also chastised herself for falling asleep.

She got out of bed, and looked at herself in the mirror. She was wearing a pair of jeans and one of her comfy t-shirts, which wouldn't have been too bad, if it hadn't been this particular t-shirt! It was a way too big and much worn out t-shirt of Taz, the Tasmanian Devil from the Loony Tunes that she used to wear when she was pregnant with Sarah because it amused Maya to no end. She loved the t-shirt, but it was probably the least flattering t-shirt in the world! She had put the t-shirt in her purse the previous night thinking that if Booth returned later than expected, she may want to be more comfortable. She must have been really distracted to pick this particular t-shirt… And her hair was a mess!

She groaned once more, and accepted that there was nothing to do with her looks. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves, got out of the room, and followed the kids' laugher to the kitchen.

What she found there was three, well make that four, kids covered in flour. Sarah was seated in a high chair, obviously from Parker's early childhood, at the kitchen counter. Maya was by her side, kneeling on a chair, trying to help Parker mix a very colorful batter, which told her that they were making M&M pancakes. Booth was frying some dough already, probably the surviving dough from their first try which must have been an adventure if the scattered flour was anything to go by. Alex burst out laughing revealing her presence to them.

Booth turned around at the sound of her laugher, and smiled sheepishly seeing that he had been caught indulging the kids with M&M pancakes with fluff on a school day. Taking in her disheveled appearance, his eyes turned darker, and he was forced to cough loudly to cover his reaction. It didn't go unnoticed by the doctor who decided that her appearance wasn't that bad after all seeing as it was appreciated by the agent. She blushed and smiled, embarrassed, making Booth smile in response.

Finally, it was Parker who broke the spell telling her that she should sit down because breakfast was about ready. He was right, not even five minutes later everyone had a plate of pancakes; even the two girls had their own plates with very small pancakes in them. Maya could eat on her own mostly; she just needed some help cutting the pancakes, and so once Booth did it, she devoured her plate in no time. However, Sarah needed to be fed so Alex took care of it while she ate her own breakfast.

"So M&M pancakes?" Alex asked feigning annoyance.

Maya, not knowing that her mom was teasing Booth, jumped to his defense, "Don't be mad at him, mom… I told him that today was special so we should have a special breakfast!"

"I figured that having you all here was special enough and indulged them," he admitted, giving her his charming smile just in case. He was pretty sure that she had been teasing him, but his charming smile never hurt. "Don't know where she got the idea, though. I swear it wasn't mine."

Alex knew where the idea came from perfectly well: they were what Maya called Daddy's pancakes because it was the special breakfast he always made. However, she refused to dwell on the sadness of it, and followed her daughter's example, by focusing on the good side of it. She laughed at them, which prompted Sarah to laugh too showing the very colorful dough in her mouth.

The shadow that crossed her eyes just before she started laughing didn't go unnoticed for Booth, though. He just followed her lead and put it aside for later and laughed with them.

They all laughed, and enjoyed their breakfast, even if Parker rolled his eyes constantly at his father for making goo-goo eyes with the nice doctor.

Parker had to admit that he liked her. He had always thought that his father would end up with Bones, but it seemed that it wasn't going to happen, and Alex was very nice. She was different from Bones, but she was funny too, and his father was always smiling when she was around so he was happy with the arrangement. He was going to have to tell his mom everything about breakfast, though. She loved gossip almost as much as Angela and she'll complain if he didn't!

* * *

When they finished breakfast, the run to make it in time to work started for both of them. Booth cleaned the kitchen while Alex changed the girls, and Parker went over his morning routine in the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, Booth kissed Alex and the girls goodbye.

"I'm sorry for what the couch did to your back," Alex told him after breaking the kiss. She had heard his back crack when he was making breakfast, and she had noticed how stiff he was, from his movements she could see that he was in pain.

"I'm a big boy, I'll survive," Booth answered smiling at her. "A hot shower will ease the muscles and I'll feel better in no time." Lying to her and tell her that his back was fine would have been fruitless, so he decided that honesty was definitively the best policy here.

"Do you have an ouchy?" Maya asked him sweetly, her face marred with worry.

"No, Maya, sweetie, I'm fine. I'm a bit sore from sleeping in the couch, but I'm perfectly fine; don't worry."

"Promise?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"Promise," he answered confidently and kissed the little girl once more.

And with that the doctor left Booth's apartment in a hurry with her daughters and a portable mug of coffee, courtesy of a thoughtful FBI agent.

While Booth arrived on time to work, having only to go about his normal business in his own apartment, Alex was forced to go back to her apartment to shower and dress appropriately for work before taking the girls to daycare, and going to work. Therefore, it was no wonder that she arrived late to the hospital. It was, however, surprising for her coworkers, and they soon started trying to pry out of her the reason for her delay.

"So?" Jen asked her smiling mischievously, and pointing to the Phillies' portable mug that Alex was carrying. Jenifer had always been very observant, and today was no exception.

"So what?" Alex tried to avoid feeding Jen's addiction to gossip, while doing her best to contain her need to smile.

"Oh, c'mon, Alex, don't be like that! Is he hot or not?" Her voice made clear what the nurse was talking about.

" _She's never meeting Angela Montenegro!_ " Alex thought. "I wouldn't know, Jen."

"You're not gonna tell me that you haven't sleep with him yet, are you?"

"I haven't, but I've slept in his bed," Alex answered smirking. She loved messing with her friend.

"What? Explain yourself Alexandra Foster, and do it right now!"

Alex laughed, and being in the good mood she was, she answered, "I fell asleep on the couch, and he put me and the girls in his bed to sleep. He slept on the couch."

"Wow! You found a gentleman!" Jenifer commented happy for the doctor.

"Oh, shut up!" Alex laughed and started walking away.

Thankfully, the nurse was needed somewhere else which prevented her from following the doctor, and Alex escaped the third grade. For now.

* * *

Booth arrived at the Hoover in a great mood after having such a great morning. Still, he was a little worried about the pancakes' issue. He knew that he had unknowingly made the same breakfast that the girls' father had done in the past, and while Alex hadn't looked upset about it, he had seen a shadow of grief cross her eyes. Plus it was a very weird breakfast, and his gut was telling him that it was important, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out why, aside from the obvious, that it is.

Anyway, he wasn't allowed to dwell on it because Evelyn knocked on his door effectively stopping his mental ramblings.

"Doctor Brennan is here, sir," the young woman announced opening the door for his partner to come in.

"Thanks for coming here, Bones. I know that with that ship going to the lab you have a lot of work, so I appreciate it." Booth pointed to one of the chairs at the other side of his desk, and Brennan took a seat.

"Of course, Booth; you said that you wanted to talk about Shaw's training as secondary liaison with the lab, and you wanted to include me in the process. I'm here because I agree with you, as your partner I should be included in her training."

"I'm glad to hear that because this part of her training is going to be mostly on your shoulders. I want you to go over certain cases with her, and by certain cases I mean those in which science was particularly important."

"Booth, science is always important in our cases," she said a little upset that he would think otherwise.

"I know that. Don't get angry, Bones," Booth answered in an apologetic voice, trying to show his honesty. "Yet, not all the cases are the same, right? Some are special… like Robert's murder, we had no skeleton and Angela grew one… well, that's pretty special, if you ask me!"

"Oh! You mean those cases when science was particularly challenging or lateral thinking was unusually important?" she half asked, half stated, finally understanding her partners' intentions.

"Yep! Or that time that the victim looked like chili con carne, or when the body was being destroyed while in the lab because of the acid," he confirmed it giving her some other examples. "I'll have Sweets go over the cases when his profiling was more useful, or his insight was important. But science is your thing, Bones, and I think that you should do your own list, just leave the serials out, at least for now."

Brennan smiled, and nodded. It was quite obvious that she liked the idea of teaching the young agent more about the work in the lab, and the science involved in solving cases. "Okay, I can do that. However, I would like to know why do you want me to leave serial killers out of the list?"

"Because, Bones, serial killers are a different type of murderer, and I want her to concentrate on your average murderer with his or her petty motives like jealousy, greed, you know… we'll graduate her to serials later," Booth said giving her his second reason. His first and most important reason was that he was sure that Taffet had an accomplice out there and he didn't want to worry the squints needlessly until he could either prove it or at least have a lead to follow. There was no reason for them to live fearing the Grave Digger when they could do nothing to find the accomplice and it didn't look like he or she were going to do anything.

"So Sweets won't go over those cases with her yet?"

"Those cases are at the bottom of Sweets' list, yeah," he answered honestly. "A _t the beginning of mine though_ ," he thought.

"C'mon, let's go give Sweets his list, and then I'll buy you a coffee for your troubles before you go play with that ship," Booth said giving her his charming smile. The sooner they left that conversation about serial killers the better.

Brennan nodded and stood up. "If we're fast we'll have time to discuss that list over our coffees."

"You already made that list in your mind, Bones?" Booth asked feigning surprise. He stood up too, and they both left his office to go to Sweets' office bickering about the list.

* * *

Booth and Brennan burst into Sweets' office without bothering on knocking, only to find Daisy and Sweets on his couch having some morning delight, like Angela would say. They were extremely grateful for the back of the couch covering the young couple so that they could only see their ridiculous underwear scattered through the room, and their feet.

"Oh!" Brennan gasped surprised.

Brennan's exclamation got the couple's attention.

Sweets raised his head from the couch, and squawked, "Agent Booth!"

He was followed by a naked and embarrassed Daisy raising her torso from the couch while covering herself with her hands, and yelling, "Dr. Brennan!"

Brennan recuperated from the initial shock, admonished Daisy, "You should be at work, Ms. Wick. It is a very important day!"

Booth was finding it way too funny, so he did his best to not laugh and just smirked. Then, he put the list of cases he wanted the shrink to review with Shaw in front of him, and said, "Pick this. It's the list of cases you gotta work with Shaw."

"You serious?" Sweets asked astonished with Booth behavior.

"Pick it up and go back to your fun." Booth's smirk grew. He was having a hard time not laughing at their baby duck.

Finally, Sweets grabbed the list, still looking mortified at being caught in the act by Booth, who was quite obviously trying very hard not to laugh at him, and the partners left his office.

Seconds after the door closed behind them, the young couple heard loud and clear Booth's laugh coming from the corridor.

" _I'll never live this down!_ " thought the young psychologist.

* * *

After the unpleasant surprise of finding Sweets and Ms. Wick in the psychologist's office, the partners had a coffee and discussed the list of cases that Brennan would review with Agent Shaw as planned. This meant that when Brennan finally arrived to the lab, the Amalia Rose was already entering in the museum.

She walked fast feeling anxious to start working on such a great project, only to be intercepted by Ms. Wick who desperately wanted to explain her relationship, or lack of, with Sweets to her mentor.

"Dr. Brennan, about this morning…"

"What about it?" Brennan asked, her voice making clear that she was uninterested in her intern's private life.

"I don't want you to think that Lance and I are dating again, because we are not. That was purely accidental intercourse," Daisy justified, or at least tried to justify, her actions.

"You had intercourse accidentally? What were you trying to do Ms. Wick?"

"I was returning a book," the intern said sounding more like a teenager than a PhD candidate.

"And your pants fell off?" Brennan asked in total disbelief.

They finally reached the lab doors, and joined Angela, and Cam who was directing the technicians as to where the pieces of the ship and the remains should go.

"All of the pieces of ship without remains attached, straight to the Early American workroom, door on your right. If it has remains attached to the platform."

Cam turned around to face Brennan, and asked to the anthropologist, "Okay. How much of this is there?"

"I have no idea."

"So when you said, old remains, the ship part of it just slipped your mind?" the coroner asked sarcastically to the other woman.

"No, of course not," Brennan answered completely oblivious to the admonishing tone of her boss.

Cam shook her head at the absurdity of the conversation. She took a deep calming breath, and silently thanked Booth again for considering that his partner probably would find it unnecessary information for the lab and not mention it. She still remembered his warning, " _Those old remains of that ship Bones talks about, they'll probably come with the ship attached._ " She was really happy that the agent knew his partner so well, because thanks to that comment she decided to call the head of the American History department to confirm Booth's suspicions, and coordinate the arrival of the ship, and the exhibit with him.

"This is incredible. I can't believe this is an actual slave ship. Where did they find it?" Angela asked fascinated with the project.

"Off the coast of Maryland. This could shed enormous light on the slave trade," Brennan answered as excited by it as the artist.

"Or give me nightmares. One or the other," Cam said with her voice full of sarcasm.

Hodgins joined them bringing an old book with him, and giving it to Angela. "Hey, they said this was for you."

"The Jeffersonian Board of Directors wants us to try and identify the remains," Brennan said as if that was new information for the rest of the scientists there.

"Yes, I knew that, and I've been meaning to ask you, Dr. Brennan, how? These people have been dead for nearly 150 years," Cam asked, glaring at the anthropologist.

She knew that Brennan tended to not consider the logistics of this kind of thing, and to forget mentioning important information like that. She normally just found the answers elsewhere or considered herself all those things that Brennan ignored, but this project was getting under her skin and making her inpatient with the quirks of the other squints. The idea of her ancestors treated like cattle, bought and sold like property, was disturbing, to say the least. She was angry at the slave-traders, slavers, masters, and at the society that condoned it, accepted it, and benefited from it for centuries. She was saddened by the pain they endured in life through slavery, and by the horrible death the crew of the Amalia Rose suffered. This was definitively not going to be an easy project for her.

"Yeah, well, this might help. It's a copy of the outgoing manifest, and it lists all the slaves they were transporting to New Orleans. There's age, and race, and degree of color. This is really detailed, in a totally horrible, disgusting, sucky kind of way," Angela said looking through that book that Hodgins just gave her.

"Slaves were considered property. They were as carefully catalogued as livestock or silverware," Hodgins said solemnly, and the group shared a sad look at the thought of it.

* * *

Soon after, they were on the platform working on identifying the remains with the help of all the squinterns. Cam had called them all, and pulled Dr. Edison and his squintern, Mr. Fisher, from Limbo to work on these remains. If she wanted this project finished as soon as possible, she needed all the hands and brains she could get.

Cam's voice full of shock at what she had just found with the remains broke the concentration of all the scientists working on the platform. "Over here. Now. Uh, n-not kidding, even a little bit. Dr. Hodgins."

"Yeah? What have you got?" Hodgins asked running to her boss, knowing that whatever she had found must be very weird to provoke such a reaction.

"That. What the hell is it?" Cam asked pointing to the pink fluff that covered the skull in the box in front of her.

"Wow. It's some kind of organism that anchored to the bone. Interesting," Hodgins said enthralled by the pink fluff. He took the skull carefully in his hands, and moved it to under the light to see it more clearly.

"Alien sea life hitchhikes in on a slave ship, and that's all you can say… interesting?" Cam asked with her naturally charming sarcasm.

"I think in this context, interesting is a way of acknowledging life-forms beyond Dr. Hodgins' expertise," Brennan explained.

"A temporary condition, I assure you," Hodgins stated still focusing his eyes on the skull. "All right, listen up! Pull any other bones with pink slime and bring them over here," he ordered to everyone on the platform. "It's possible that 'alien' is an appropriate adjective. I mean, we may be looking at NTI, here."

Hodgins' excitement about the pink fluff was, in Cam's opinion, more than a little funny, but that didn't really explain what he was talking about. "What's he talking about?"

"I have no idea," Brennan answered looking at the entomologist with the same confusion that the coroner.

"NTI, as in Non-Terrestrial Intelligence?" Hodgins half asked half explained looking at them as if the others should know these things.

"Oh no," Angela muttered fearing that her husband could go on one of his rants about conspiracies, alien life, or any other of his weird obsessions.

"If alien life-forms were going to exist somewhere on Earth, the ocean floor would be it."

"Please tell me you're kidding," Cam pleaded clearly wanting Hodgins to stop wandering around the SyFy Channel world and come back to the real world.

Brennan studied the bones, and her expression grew concerned. "Judging by weight and texture, all of the affected bones appear to belong to the same skeleton. Something is very wrong…"

"You mean aside from the pink alien form?" Cam asked.

"I doubt that the slime on the bones is alien, but yes, aside from that," Brennan answered. She pointed to a hole in the base of the skull and explained the problem. "This puncture would have extended upward into the anterior base of the brain, resulting in immediate death. This man was hooked through the mouth like a fish; and given the condition of his cartilage he died approximately two months ago."

"So we've just found a two month old murder victim covered in pink slime in a 150-year-old slave ship, is that about right?" Angela asked summing up the odd circumstances.

The other scientists nodded, but only Cam spoke, "Great! If a slave ship wasn't enough, we also have a case. I'll call Booth. Angela, make a facial reconstruction so that Booth can start looking into it. Hodgins take the pink slime out of the victim. And Dr. Brennan you can have one intern working on this case at a time, the rest stay with the ship."

Having given her orders to the other scientist, Cam walked to her office to inform Booth about the new case.

* * *

Hours later, Booth hung up the phone in his office, and turned slightly in his chair to look at Sweets and Agent Shaw. They were both standing by his desk waiting for instructions on how to proceed with the case.

"Well, Hodgins is still trying to ID the pink slime… he's hoping that it's an alien form and wants to name it after Angela… but Bones scanned the bones, and she told me that the victim was 19 or 20 years old, and he suffered child abuse. Angela gave us a face, and the face gave me a name… problem is the name and the face don't match." Booth gave Shaw a print of the driver license associated to the face to see if she could reach the same conclusion that he did. "Mike Casper is 28, married to Claire Casper, he has a kid, a dog, and a cushy aerospace job… see the problem?"

"ID theft?" Shaw suggested, and smiled when Booth nodded.

"That would be my guess, Shaw. You go, and bring both Claire and Mike Casper here for an interview," Booth ordered.

"Me, sir?" she asked both eager to do it, and happy that Booth trusted her to go on her own. Until now, she had only gone out with him.

"Yep. You're taking Wendell with you. Apparently he volunteered. The rest of the squints and squinterns will continue to work on the slave ship. Until Hodgins can kill the pink alien stuff there's not much they can do. However, I asked Angela to make a simulation of how our John Doe looked when he was a kid. He isn't in the Missing Person's Database; but he was abused when he was a kid, so if he ran away, we may get lucky and ID him through the Missing Children's Database."

Shaw accepted her orders with a smile, and left the office to pick up Wendell, and then the Casper's.

Booth turned his attention to the psychologist, who was still there. "Charlie is doing a background check on the Casper's, and once Shaw is here we'll go over it together. You can sit in the interview if you want, but until then there's nothing you can do. Go have a coffee or something."

Sweets didn't get the hint, so he didn't leave the room, and started talking about fishing nets, and whatnot, while Booth did his best to read the report on his desk and ignore the shrink. After some long moments, he had had enough and blurted, "Okay, why are you still here?"

"I'm weak. I'm weak, Agent Booth," Sweets started babbling and pacing around. He sounded pretty desperate, and he obviously needed Booth's advice. "I broke up with Daisy, but I can't keep my hands off her."

"What's new?" Booth asked sarcastically. He really didn't want to get involved in Sweets' relationship with Daisy. Still the younger man wanted help so he turned to look at him, and tried to give it. "All right, you're a guy. Life goes on."

Sweets walked to his desk, and faced the agent trying to have a real conversation. "Yeah, that's the problem. We broke up, but it just goes on. It's… it's like she's a magnet. Should I just let it happen?"

"Here. Pick it up," Booth said picking up a magic eight ball and putting it back on the desk in front of Sweets.

The psychologist shook the ball, and read the message, "yes, definitely. You think?"

"I don't know. How am I supposed to know?" Booth asked him frustrated.

"Years of experience? The perspective of age?" Sweets asked not considering that Booth may be sensitive about his age.

Booth's arms were resting on his desk, and he let his head fall on them sighing in annoyance. "Age!"

Stretching himself up again to lean on the back of his chair, he turned to look at the younger man even more frustrated than before. "How is it I went to sleep Han Solo, and I woke up Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," asked Sweets, very confused.

Booth growled at him. "First Bones wants me to stop hunting 'cause in her opinion my skeleton is falling apart, and now you want the perspective of age… I'm 38 for Christ's sake! If you want the perspective of age, go talk to Pops!"

The shrink finally understood that he was annoying the agent. In his opinion, an angry Booth was a very scary Booth, so he left the room in a hurry giving some weak excuse about work before he could make it worse.

* * *

Shaw was driving to the Casper's house in her issued SUV with Wendell in the passenger seat. He looked nervous, and he was obviously trying to gather the courage to ask her something.

The agent suspected that it had something to do with Evelyn and her decision to reject him without giving an explanation. Genny thought that Evelyn was making a mistake. Wendell is a good guy, he is a lot like Booth, and it is obvious that he really likes her so in Genny's opinion he was a good candidate for her friend. She understood Evelyn's fear all too well, but she didn't want to see her friend alone because she was scared. She had also refused to explain to him why she was rejecting him even though it was clear that she liked him too claiming that he didn't need an explanation and she wasn't obligated to give it. Maybe Evelyn was right about the second part, but not about the first: Wendell needed an explanation, and the guy was like a dog with a bone, he wasn't going to let it go until he got it.

"Okay, ask," Shaw asked bored of waiting, and a little annoyed with Wendell's constants glances. The squint kept looking at her as if he was going to find the courage to ask on her face.

Wendell, surprised at hearing the agent's voice, turned his head to look at her and stammered something that was supposed to be a question. "Wh-what?"

"You know, about Evelyn… just ask me why she rejected you. The sooner we get over this conversation the better. We're close."

"Okay. Why did Evelyn reject me?" he asked after taking a deep breath to calm himself. "Booth told me that you two share something, something big, really important. Well, what's that and how does it relate to rejecting me?"

"I can't answer that. In fact, I can't really tell you why she rejected you. She made me promise, and I keep my promises. But I can tell you that she really, really likes you, and that you should find the best sushi in DC and talk her into explaining it to you."

"Thanks," Wendell said smiling.

Shaw nodded and smiled back. She had kept her promise to her friend of not telling, but she was helping Wendell win her. She hadn't promised not to give some tips to the guy.

* * *

Shaw and Wendell bought the Casper's back to the Hoover for an interview. Then Wendell went back to the lab to work on the remains of the Amalia Rose, while the psychologist and the two agents conducted the interview.

They got nothing out of it because they lawyered up as soon as they understood that they were suspects. The ID theft was a motive, and Mike had a fishing boat which gave him the opportunity.

Angela's simulation of John Doe's face when he was a child and his ID from Missing Children's Database arrived when Booth was getting ready to leave for the day. Angela identified him as Liam Molony. He ordered Charlie to have someone run a background check on him, and have three copies of it handed to Evelyn first thing tomorrow. With that Booth considered his job done for the day, secured his station, locked his office, and left.

He drove to Parker's school to coach his hockey team. Parker had a bunch of activities after school hours, which he loved and so did his parents because they extended his time there until six allowing both of them to pick him up without problems every day. On Fridays when he had the science camp and the art class in the Jeffersonian, Booth would drive him there and then go back to work, so it still worked pretty well. Tuesday and Thursday he had Spanish and baseball in that order. Mondays and Wednesdays were French and hockey days though, so Booth was at his school at five to coach the team. On Thursdays Booth picked Parker up on his way to his own hockey practice and Parker, who's hockey things were in his dad's SUV, will either join them for a bit or "coach" them, repeating some of what Booth had said to his team the previous day. These activities not only kept Parker at school until Rebecca or Booth could get to him, but allowed Booth and Parker to bond through hockey. Also it was very good for him because it allowed the kid to practice sports, learn science, art, Spanish, and French. Booth was incredibly proud of him, and Parker had made a bunch of friends in those classes, so he was thrilled.

Once Parker was in the car, they drove to the Jeffersonian. Booth planned on convincing Cam to have dinner with them to take her mind off the slave ship. Convincing may not have been the right word, though considering that he planned to bribe her with homemade lasagna, Parker, and helping her prepare for the interview about her article about brain injuries in veterans.

* * *

Father and son arrived to the lab, and not seeing Cam on the platform, they walked to the Ookei room following the noise generated by Daisy and Hodgins arguing over a skeleton covered in some kind of pink fluff. It was obviously the skeleton of their victim and the pink slime that the entomologist was still trying to ID.

"I don't understand why you can't just pluck." Daisy was clearly frustrated with the lack of progress in cleaning the bones done by Hodgins.

"If I pluck them off one by one, it's going to take a week, Ms. Wick, so what you need to do is stop telling me how to do my job," answered Hodgins aggravated with the impatient intern.

Parker found the pink organism fascinating and immediately started to ask questions to Hodgins while completely ignoring the argumentative squintern. "Bug Man, what's that pink thing?"

"I don't see how this is going to hurry things up," Daisy continued the argument as if nothing had interrupted it.

Hodgins signed in annoyance, and lifting one finger he told the kid to wait a second. Parker knowing that Jack was going to read the riot act to Daisy waited patiently. "If I figure out what they are, I figure out how to get them off. Any more questions, Miss Wick?"

"Not at this moment." The irritation of both squints was palpable, and Booth who was leaning on the door watching the scene was starting to crave popcorn. He also could see that Parker was feeling more or less the same way which amused him even more.

"Well, Parker, I still don't know what it is… but I intend to find out," Hodgins answered the boy's question. He looked a lot calmer than a second ago, and in Booth's opinion the crazy entomologist was already talking like a dad. Just not to Daisy. But really no one, not even a parent of small kids, could have enough patience to deal with Daisy for more than ten minutes.

Hodgins took a flashlight to illuminate the skeleton better, and coaxed Parker to join him and watch the pink fluff making a movement with his free hand. "Aha! Yes! It's a type of benthic worm… that's a type of marine worm, Parker," exclaimed Hodgins very excited with his discovery. Turning his attention to the squintern, he said, "See, Miss Wick? Progress."

Cam entered the room at that moment, glared at Booth with suspicion, greeted Parker, and then gave her attention to the entomologist. "Okay, the only way I can get DNA to confirm the ID of our ID thief is by using bone marrow, but your alien organism has sucked it dry."

"Contrary to popular rumor, it is not _my_ alien organism. Not yet, anyway. But I have narrowed it down to a type of benthic worm."

"That's a type of marine worm, Cam," Parker supplied seeing that the coroner was glaring at Jack.

"How can you not be able to ID a fluffy pink worm? How many of those could there possibly be?" Cam asked in disbelief.

"Oh, you'd be surprised," Jack answered very excited. "You see, Parker, most people don't know it but there are a lot of weird creatures in our planet."

Cam rolled her eyes at the entomologist, and gave up the intimidation act for the day. "So, Booth, what are you doing here? And don't tell me that you're fascinated by pink worms!" she asked the agent who was still observing the scene from the door.

"Nope, don't really care for Hodgins' pink fluffy thing. I'm here to invite you to homemade lasagna," the agent answered with his charming smile plastered on his face for good measure.

"You are going to make your lasagna for me because…" the coroner asked suspicious of the agent's intentions.

"You said that you wanted my help to prepare your interview, Camille."

"Don't call me Camille, Seeley," she retorted automatically. "No sane woman would reject your lasagna," she said walking past him to get her purse and jacket. "But don't think for a second that I don't know what you're doing, Big Guy."

Booth shrugged his shoulders; he didn't care that she knew, nor had he expected her not to. "As long as you come. And don't call me Seeley."

"Oh, Booth; thanks," the coroner added once she was back with her things ready to leave.

"You're welcome."

Booth signaled Parker that it was time to go, and after a brief goodbye to Hodgins, and the other squints, the Booth boys followed Cam out of the lab.

* * *

Hodgins went back to work on the pink fluff, but after some seconds he noticed that he wasn't being harassed by Daisy any more. Surprised by it, he lifted his head form the skeleton to find the squintern staring blankly to the open door Booth had left through. Hodgins shook his head in amusement; Booth was apparently the magic recipe to shut up the talkative woman.

Angela joined them in the Ookei room at that moment. She was ready to go home, and her husband noticing it, started packing to leave too. Angela raised her one eyebrow to ask Hodgins how he had mastered the art of silencing Daisy.

"Not me; Booth," Jack answered smirking. "She's been like this since he left," he explained a little bit better.

"Booth was here?"

"Yes, he invited Cam to homemade lasagna, and off they were… Daisy too," Hodgins said; laugher evident in his voice.

"Uhm… I can see why Agent Studly offering to cook for you can be crushable. He's even fitter since he came back from Afghanistan… all the running around in the desert and all…" Angela said in an exaggerated manner while waving her right hand in front of Daisy. "Think he broke her?"

Finally, Daisy came out of her trance denying vehemently that she could have a crush on the agent. "I do not have a crush on Agent Booth! My Lancelot is younger and strong… and…"

"I thought you and Sweets weren't together anymore," Hodgins pointed out.

Angela glared at him for being insensitive and the entomologist made a show of closing his mouth loudly. "Daisy, think of him as eye candy: you can see but you can't touch."

"Of course not! Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth are destined to be together. Well, destiny is not real, but they are a perfect match so metaphorically speaking, using the irrational concept of destiny… they should totally be together. I wouldn't want to interfere with that! I'm merely worried for Dr. Brennan… is Agent Booth dating Dr. Saroyan again? Lancelot told me they dated in the past…"

Hodgins and Angela exchanged a confused look, and started walking together out of the room. "Miss Wick, take care of those bones, and don't mess with my pink worm!" Hodgins ordered the intern.

They were already half way out of the lab, when Hodgins asked Angela how could Daisy be so clueless as to what was going on with Brennan and Booth.

"She's as clueless as Sweets, Hodgy," the artist stated trying really hard not to laugh at the weird couple, or not-couple, that Daisy Wick and _Lancelot_ made.

* * *

Next day Booth had lunch with Alex in the Founding Fathers. They had made a habit of eating lunch together if they could because it allowed them to talk and get to know each other better without the pressure of a traditional date. They felt more relaxed this way, and it was working wonders in their very new relationship. It also was easier for them than have dinner dates because during the day their kids were at school or daycare so they didn't need babysitters if they wanted to be alone.

"So, did you ID that poor kid?" Alex asked showing interest in his case, but before he could answer she thought of something else, "How's Cam? You said yesterday that you wanted to have dinner with her to distract her from the Amalia Rose."

"Cam is okay… she's a bit shaken by it, but she a tough girl, she just…"

"Needs to know that she has her friends' support," Alex finished the sentence for him, seeing he was having difficulties finding the right words.

Booth nodded sadly. He knew that Cam was fine, she will be fine, but he also knew that it was affecting her, and he worried about his old friend. "I talked with her on the phone before lunch, and she told me that they'll need a week or so to ID all the remains, and the Department of Early American History is working on the ship. They're restoring it or something for the exhibit. They think they'll be ready in two weeks, so the board is already planning an inauguration event for then. Oh, and Angela is making portraits for the victims, one for each… they're going to be part of the exhibit."

"That's good of Angela, to give faces to those people," Alex commented smiling sadly. "It's sad, you know, to think that at one time slavery was legal under the ridiculous excuse of race."

"It's more than just sad," Booth said softly.

"Yeah, it's pretty horrible," Alex agreed with him. He was upset, it was clear to her, and she recognize that he probably was also upset on Cam's behalf, so she extended her hand over the table to squeeze his in a supportive gesture.

Booth answered by smiling sadly at her. Then, he cleared his throat, and stirred the conversation in a different direction. "Going back to the case, we did ID the kid. His name was Liam, he was in foster care his entire childhood, until he was busted two years ago for B&E with another foster kid. Liam got a suspended sentence in exchange for testifying against the other kid, so I've put Shaw into tracking him down."

"You think that he could have killed him out of revenge?" Alex asked a little disturbed by the thought.

"If you want the truth, I still think that it has to do with the ID theft, not revenge… it sounds a lot bigger, the Casper's have a lot more to lose," he confessed. "I'm just checking everything.

Oh, and on the funny side, Hodgins discovered what the pink slime is… apparently is not alien, just some kind of marine worm. He was a little disappointed about it, until he discovered that piranhas eat the fluffy thing, and he's now enjoying the spectacle of seeing them do it," he added smirking. Hodgins was one weird guy for sure.

Alex laughed; Booth has some odd friends. "Okay, now changing topics completely… are we still on for dinner tonight, or would you distract Cam again?"

"No, tonight is Paul's turn. I have hockey practice today, and after it Wendell will babysit Parker for our date," Booth answered smiling.

With that the couple went back to happier conversation topics, like their next date, the kids, or Susan's last attempt at convincing Alex to introduce Booth to her. In this occasion, Susan had claimed that Alex didn't have to conquer Booth's heart but his stomach, and then she had tried bribery offering to make her best pie, and give it to Alex so that she could to give it to him. Susan's interest in meeting him, and the ways she came up to try to convince Alex to introduce him to her, were really amusing to Booth. He already liked the woman, and he hasn't met her yet.

* * *

Seeing as there wasn't much to work on the Molony case until they located Hunter Lang, Molony's accomplice in the B&E that got him caught, or the squints gave him more information, he decided to work on something different.

He read some of the reports from his agents about other cases; he made some notes about them, and the possible strategies to follow to catch the bad guys, or about things he wanted to talk about with the agents in charge of those cases. Then, he made a list of agents he wanted to talk with the next day, and left for the day, taking with him some agents' evaluation reports that Evelyn had printed because they were ready for signature and to be sent up the ladder. He'll read them once more at home after his date with Alex, before signing them. He'll still have a lot to do in the morning, but at least it would be one less thing.

He drove to Parker's school to pick him up, and they drove to Booth's hockey practice, while the boy told his father everything about his baseball practice, which was awesome, in the kid's words.

The practice was fun for everyone, even Parker who, having his gear in Booth's SUV, joined them for a little while. After it, Booth showered and shaved in the lockers for his date with Alex, something the other players noticed.

"Shaving, Booth? You got a date with the hot doctor?" one of them commented teasingly.

"Johnson if you keep talking like that I'm gonna kick your ass, and then I'd let her make you a eunuch like she threatened to do," Booth said using his boss voice. The other player swallowed and promptly shut up.

Booth made a quick job of putting on his suit, and a new dress shirt. "Wendell, you about ready?" he asked the squintern, who was already dressed and was getting his gear in his bag. Receiving affirmative response from Wendell, the agent got two ties out of his bag, and showed them to Parker. "Bud, what do you think, which one should I wear?" Parker pointed to Booth's favorite red tie, and once he had that on, they left the ring.

Wendell took Parker in his car to Booth's apartment, and spent the rest of the evening with the kid. Booth had left food ready in the fridge so he only needed to heat it up for dinner. After dinner Parker did his homework, with some help from Wendell, and then, they played videogames until bedtime. Once Parker was in bed, Wendell got settled in the living room with his books to study while he waited for Booth.

* * *

Meanwhile, Booth and Alex had a very enjoyable dinner at Sid's. Alex had insisted on returning there, not caring for an expensive restaurant, and preferring Sid's great food, and the relaxed atmosphere of the place. It was only Thursday after all, and they both needed to be at work the next day, so they couldn't stay long.

After dinner Booth drove Alex back home, and walked with her up the stairs the two floors to her apartment.

"You shaved again this afternoon; you wanted to look pretty," she teased him.

"You let your hair free, and you're wearing more make up than this afternoon," he retorted in the same teasing tone. She was still wearing the same red and black work dress, he noticed, that emphasized her figure. He could admit it; he loved that dress. Now her hair wasn't tied up in a bun anymore but free though, and her makeup was more appropriate for a date than a workday.

Alex laughed. "Truce," she offered. They were already by her apartment's door, where Susan was staying to take care of the kids, who probably were already sleeping.

Her laugh made Booth smile at her sweetly, and he accepted the truce with a nod. "Susan's spying on us again. You should expect a good grilling the moment you cross that door," he said in good humor.

"You feel observed again. Then you probably should kiss me goodnight and leave before she decides to pull you into the house and grill you instead of me," she answered smiling.

Booth accepted the invitation, and kissed her goodnight. He intended it to be a sweet, soft kiss, but was surprised when Alex grabbed him by the lapels of his suit jacket before he could retire, and kissed him thoroughly.

When they broke apart, she blushed, smiled a little, and with a goodnight and a promise to call him for lunch the next day, she went inside leaving a speechless, grinning like an idiot Booth.

Suffice to say that when Booth arrived home, he still had the silly grin plastered on his face.

Wendell did his best not to laugh at the agent, and contented himself with teasing him lightly. Booth paid him for his job, and the squintern left, still trying not to laugh. He wanted to live long enough to get his doctorate, at the very least.

He couldn't help himself, however, and had to make one last comment as he left the apartment, "you still have lipstick on your face, Booth."

"Shut up!" Booth shouted at the squintern, since the door was closing. Yet, he was unable to hide his smile, and with it firm on his face, he went into the bathroom to look himself in the mirror, to find that he had indeed red lipstick on his lips. His smile grew even wider. He had a very good feeling about Alex.

* * *

Alex closed the door to her apartment behind her and let her body fall against it. She was grinning like an idiot, and she could barely believe she had kissed the man so thoroughly and passionately after only a few dates. Until now their kisses had been sweet and soft, tentative even sometimes, and she knew he, being the perfect gentlemen he was, was going to give her another gentlemen-ish goodnight kiss. She had wanted more so she had changed the tune and opened the door for a little more passion to come into their very new relationship. She hadn't been disappointed; the kiss had turned out to be one hell of a kiss, and she had felt his strong arms bringing her closer to his body and one of his hands playing with her hair.

"That was some kiss, young lady," an old, tiny, black woman said pinning Alex under her knowing glare. She was clearly amused by Alex appearance: messed up hair, flushed face, idiotic smile…

"Susan!" Alex complained knowing very well that her friend had been spying them.

"Oh, no, no, no… do not get all flustered with me now. You were the one who instigated it," Susan said with her voice full of laugher while she picked her purse and things to leave the apartment. "The rugrats are sleeping, so I'm going to go. Enjoy feeling stupid for now… I'll want details and I expect to meet him soon, young lady!"

And with that Susan left, leaving Alex rooted in her living room looking at the closed door of her apartment in astonishment. She shook her head trying to clear it, secured the door, took off her heels, and walked further into the apartment enjoying the feelings Booth had elected, or like Susan said, feeling stupid.


	13. The Shallow In The Deep Resolved

**Chapter 12:**

**The Shallow In The Deep Resolved**

**Timeline:** Last week of October, 2010 (fifth week upon the team's return to D.C.), and first week of November, 2010 (six week upon the team's return to D.C.)

 **Season/episode:** 6x06 - "The Shallow in the Deep"

* * *

The next morning, when Booth arrived at the office, Shaw had already located Hunter Lang thanks to his parole officer. He worked as a bartender on a boat, the Dandeana, where the owner, Captain Kelly, organized different social activities and parties.

"There's a party this evening, sir, so he should be there," Shaw informed him.

"Good. Bones and I will go talk to him."

"Uhm… maybe you should know a little about the theme of the party, sir. It's a cougar cruise organized by someone named Nadia Blake," the junior agent explained a little embarrassed.

"Then maybe I should take Sweets and trade him for information," Booth joked.

"Think that would make him a little less hyper, sir?"

"Sadly, I don't think so. Daisy is not helping with that at all… they seem to feed energy to each other and are trapped in some weird and endless loop of hyper-ness."

"Maybe one of the cougars would break the loop, sir. It would make it easier to work with him. He's sometimes a little too much, if I'm honest, sir."

She didn't like admitting to her boss that Sweets could be very annoying, she was new and being a snitch was probably not a good idea, but he could be intrusive sometimes and had a difficult time respecting people's boundaries and privacy. From what she had gathered talking to other agents, most of them simply ignored him and after a while he seemed to just get tired and stopped annoying them; except for his fascination with Booth and Doctor Brennan that seemed to know no end. She really had hoped his interest in her private life would have ended in a few days once he understood that she wasn't going to tell him anything. For some reason it hadn't, and he keeps asking about her phone calls home when she was in the office.

"Sweets has been poking his nose in your business, eh, Shaw?" Booth asked knowingly. Seeing Shaw nod, he added, "okay, don't worry. Tell him to back off or I'll have to talk with him about privacy _again_. He knows what that would entitle. He'll leave you alone."

Booth had already explained to the psychologist that he couldn't harass his agents trying to get private information out of them. If anyone wanted to talk to him in his capability of a psychologist, they will go to his office and talk to him. If they didn't he was to stay away from private matters and offer his help as a profiler only. If Sweets couldn't respect said boundaries, he would have to take disciplinary action against him: he'll remove him from the department, no more working cases and profiling, he'll go back to shrinking people in his office and only in his office.

"Thanks, sir," the young woman said honestly. It was obvious to her that Sweets hadn't stopped annoying the other agents by his own accord but because the boss had read him the riot act. Booth couldn't be angry at her for complaining about him then.

"Okay, leave the information of that cougar cruise with me, and go back to whatever you were doing," Booth ordered good-naturedly.

"Yes, sir. I'm helping Agent Casey with another case and reading some of the scientific material Doctor Brennan gave me. She wants to talk about it once the Amalia Rose project is finished and she has more time."

"Good. Then go, Shaw, the sooner you're done the sooner you'll get home. It's Friday, you should enjoy the weekend."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," Shaw said politely and left his office closing the door behind her.

She still used the 'sir' way too much for his liking, but at least she seemed more relaxed in his presence and a little more confident in the department, Booth noticed. He was pleased with her job, even if she was constantly trying to impress him. That would pass soon, she just needed to see that she was part of the team and she no longer had to earn a place in it.

* * *

In the afternoon, Booth picked Parker up from his school and drove him to the Jeffersonian for Science Camp and his art class. Seeing as both were in the same building of the lab, the boy was perfectly capable of going from one to the other on his own, and later go to Angela's office. Booth had called Angela beforehand to make sure that she could take care of him until he came back from the cruise, and Angela and Hodgins promised to entertain him and even take him to the diner for dinner.

Knowing that his son was going to be properly supervised, he grabbed Brennan and Sweets, who he planned to pimp out in exchange of information, and took them to the marine.

Once there, Sweets tried to explain to them the weird situation he was in with Daisy, only to be ignored by the partners who just wanted to know that he wasn't going to have sex in front of them again.

Noticing that he was being ignored, he tried to give them some pointers about the consequences of being in Foster Care that Lang could suffer. He postulated that working on a boat may have to do with wanting isolation. Booth who hadn't told him anything about the boat being a party boat or the cougar cruise did his best to appear unaffected by Sweets' words and not let it show what he knew.

Upon finding the right boat, Sweets looked stunted, Brennan tried to lecture them about cougars, and Booth simply used the opportunity to mock Sweets a little. He had seen him talk with Shaw that afternoon and for the looks of it, the conversation had been about privacy and now the psychologist was tripping all over himself to please Booth. The agent hoped this was the last he heard about the privacy issue pertaining to Sweets, but just in case, he wanted to keep the boy-wonder out of kilter for a while longer.

The ladies were boarding and Nadia Blake, the party planner, was with them so Booth introduced them to her, and after a quasi virgin offering, like Brennan called it, they were all on board of the cougar cruise.

Brennan was obviously feeling quite festive rather than professional because she decided to mix with the crow and flirt with the young guys in the party. Finding himself without a partner and feeling more than a little annoyed by it, Booth rescued Sweets from a bunch of women who wanted to tuck him in, and took him to the bar to talk with Hunter Lang.

Hunter told them that Liam had last been in the cruise on Labor Day. Most guys come to these cruises for the free booze and easy sex, but Liam, in Hunter's words, came to work on the cougars and get some extra money, gifts, etc. Booth immediately saw the connection, Liam started affairs with these women to get money from them; he could very well coerce married women to pay him to keep the secret from the husbands, or steal the ID of said husband. Either way, if Claire Casper had an affair with Liam it would explain how Liam got Mike Casper's ID, and make Mike an even a better suspect because he would have two motives: the ID thief and the affair, money and jealousy. And let's not forget that Claire also could have killed him to keep the affair a secret from her husband, or revenge, the ID thief had really made a number in their home economy.

Hunter also told them that he never saw Liam leave the cruise on Labor Day, and that he was one of Nadia's favorites and they were frequently together. So Booth decided that the next step was a talk with Nadia and a tour through the cruise to check if Liam could have died on the boat.

Finding Brennan in the crowd wasn't easy, but at least Booth got the satisfaction of being propositioned by one of the cougars who gave him her number on a napkin.

Anyway, Brennan and Booth took their time looking around the boat and found a hook that could have been the murder weapon. When they found Nadia Blake she was below deck in one of the rooms with one of the kids, and the wardrobe of the room was full of maggots.

Booth was now convinced; Liam Molony never made it out of the cruise alive, the whole ship was a crime scene. He ordered the drunken Captain Kelly to take the cruise back to the marina, and called the FBI techs to inspect it and a few agents to interview the attendants to the party.

* * *

With the boat back tied up to the dock of the marina, Shaw and Burns boarded it looking for their boss.

"Sorry to bring you all so late but I think we finally caught a break with this case," Booth apologized to them seeing that his watch marked eight o'clock. "Liam Molony was last seen in this boat on Labor Day. I want the techs to comb the whole damned boat and find out where he was killed and where he was thrown out from. There's a hook that could be our murder weapon, and there's a closet oozing maggots whose last meal may have been Liam. Have them send to the Jeffersonian anything that you think the squints should look at; and the photos for Angela to reconstruct the crime if needed.

"Then, Nadia Blake, here," he said pointing to the woman seated in a near chair, "would give you a list of the guests on the Labor Day's party. At the very least, she should have the 'cougars' but push her to give you the 'cubs' too. I'm sure Claire Casper is on that list. Have some agents interview them, except the Casper's; I want to know if they saw Liam, when, where, with whom… show them Claire and Mike Casper's photos, see if they recognize any of them and if they saw them with Liam. We need to reconstruct Liam's movements that night.

"Interview the guests of today's party too, both 'cougars' and 'cubs'. See if anyone was here on Labor Day and what they saw." Booth pointed out to the group of people standing in the room looking annoyed because their party was over.

"Hunter Lang has already volunteered to tell us what he remembers of that day, so take him to the Hoover, give him coffee and a sandwich, and walk with him through the events of that night. And the drunken Popeye too." He pointed to a drunken Captain Kelly who was also seated on a chair near Blake. "Sober him up, and have him ready to talk to me tomorrow at 9. The same goes for Blake."

"Yes, sir." Shaw said dutifully, while Charlie simply nodded accepting the orders.

"Oh, Sweets is staying to help you. I'm taking Bones back to the lab and leaving for the night. I'll see you tomorrow at 9 in my office." With Booth's last comment the two agents went to work and put the other agents and the technicians to work.

* * *

Booth took Brennan back to the lab where she had parked her car after convincing her that she should go to sleep and start working again in the morning with fresh eyes. Any evidence the FBI techs found tonight wasn't going to get to the lab before morning anyway, and the work on the Amalia Rose was progressing quite well, so Brennan saw the wisdom in Booth's recommendation.

He then picked up Parker from the diner where he was having dinner and a milkshake with Hodgins and Angela. Hodgins was explaining to his kid something about marine worms that Parker was finding fascinating. Booth was again hit with the fact that those two were going to be excellent parents, and with how grateful he was to have them take care of his son when he needed.

Smiling at the trio, he joined them, and after ordering his own dinner he told them a little about what they found on the boat. Omitting, of course, for Parker's sake, anything related to the cougars/cubs deal.

"So, you'll have to work tomorrow," asked Parker looking sad about it.

"Sorry bud. It will only be during the morning. You can come with me, and then will go for lunch and have the rest of the weekend off," Booth assured his kid the best he could.

Parker nodded still looking a little sad, but relieved to know that he was going to get to spend most of his weekend with his dad.

When Booth's dinner was finished, they said their goodbyes to the Hodgins' and they left for home. Parker needed a good night sleep, and so did Booth if he was going to interview Blake and Kelly in the morning without feeling the need to strangle any of them.

* * *

The next morning, Booth and Parker arrived to the Hoover at 9 sharp and found Charlie, Shaw, and Sweets already waiting for him by his office's door. He unlocked the door to let Parker in, and following him into the office, he took of his leather jacket and hung it on his chair. It was Saturday, and immediately after finishing his job in the Hoover he was going to enjoy his free weekend, so Booth had decided to dress informal for the day wearing jeans, a t-shirt and said leather jacket.

"Okay, Parks, stay here and play with your video game. These three are going to get me up to date, I have two people to talk to, and then we're outta here," Booth told his son. Parker nodded, let his body fall into one of the chairs, and took his game out of his pocket already switching it on to play.

Going back to the bullpen, Booth signaled the other three agents to start talking.

"We already sent the hook and the maggots to the Jeffersonian and a heavy archive with photos for Angela. The techs are still working on the boat and we'll know more later today or tomorrow," Shaw started reporting to her boss as efficiently as ever. "We talked with everyone that was on the boat yesterday, and with the list of guests of Labor Day's party that Blake gave us. We know that Claire Casper was in the list and a lot of the guests remember her. Even better, they remember her talking and dancing with Liam, and three of them saw her and Liam leave the party area presumably to go below deck to some more private area together."

"With that and what Hunter told us we were able to make a timeline. The party started at five, Liam and Claire danced, drank and talked in the party area until approximately seven. Then they left for the rooms and only Claire came back an hour later. Liam never returned to the party area and never left the boat," Sweets continued.

"Hunter said that Claire was one of Liam's regulars. He's sure he had or was having an affair with her," Shaw pointed out.

"Okay. So we can confirm that Liam and Claire had an affair, they probably met at the Casper's house sometime and Liam stole Mike's ID. Claire and Liam met at the cruise and she killed him during that hour she was unaccounted for. Liam was a threat to her life style," Booth summarized. "Just for the sake of it, let's discard the husband. Does anyone remember Mike?"

"Nope," Charlie answered simply. "He may have wanted to kill him for stealing his ID, but I don't think the poor bastard knew about the affair or at least he didn't know about the cruises. If he had made a scene in one of them someone would remember him, and no one does."

"Okay, Charlie, go find a judge to sign you a warrant to keep the Casper's under surveillance, we don't want them to flee. We're also going to need their phone records to prove the affair and to see if Mike knew about it. Get someone to check their financial records again, see if they can find anything.

"I want someone to collect the official statements of all those guests we've interviewed, and Hunter's. Make sure they are ready on Monday morning," Booth ordered Charlie.

"Of course. We also found where Liam used to live. The place was like a closet full of rats, but he was over a month overdue so the landlord packed his things in a few boxes and emptied the apartment. I already sent two rookies to pick up his things. I'll have someone check in there to see if we can find any evidence of the affair, and get a report for you on Monday too."

"Perfect," Booth said approvingly. He liked working with Charlie; he was really good with this part of the job.

"Oh, and Hunter wants us to release Liam's body and his personal effects to him when we finish the investigation. He's the only family that Liam had…" Sweets added.

"Okay. We'll do that." Booth was glad that Hunter was going to take care of his friend. Liam's death had been sad enough, he was relieved to see that he had been right, and Hunter was innocent.

"Now, Blake and Popeye… are they ready to talk?"

"Yes, sir. We got both of them sobered, showered, feed and full of coffee in interrogation rooms 1 and 2," Shaw answered smiling.

"Good. Then Charlie, off to work. And you two come with me, we're going to talk with Ms. Cougar Party first and then with Popeye."

And with that Booth, Sweets, and Shaw went to the interrogation rooms to talk with both witnesses.

* * *

The interview with Nadia Blake was useless, just an enormous waste of time. Sweets and Booth had interrogated her while Shaw stayed in the observation room. Blake knew Liam and she had been with him in the past, but she didn't keep track of him; she simply didn't care. She gave them no useful information aside from the fact that only Kelly had a key to the closet full of maggots.

Booth was disgusted by Blake. She really didn't care about Liam at all. Liam had needed some guidance, and she had fed him to the wolves. He had been a survivor and used it to his advantage, only to have one of the wolves turn around and kill him.

The drunken Popeye wasn't any better. This time Shaw and Booth went in to talk to him, and left Sweets in the observation room. Brennan had called to confirm them that the hook found in the boat was definitively the murder weapon, it was consistent with the injury Liam suffered and there were some traces of Liam's blood in the juncture between the hook and the handle. They had used that as leverage, and insinuated that his wife had an affair with Liam fabricating a motive for him to kill the youngster, but the only thing that they got out of him was that he saw Claire Casper and Liam go under the deck during the Labor Day's cruise. They had to get him drunk to help his memory, though. The man couldn't do anything without bourbon.

In addition to this, Hodgins had analyzed the maggots and found that their last meal hadn't been Liam but cheese. Kelly had confirmed that he stocked an illegal Sardinian cheese ribbed with live insect larvae in that closet after a gourmet party.

If Liam hadn't been stocked in that closet, unless the techs combing the boat find some kind of evidence in the contrary, the simplest thing was to assume that Claire had killed Liam on the deck with the hook and tossed him into the water immediately after.

When they finally finished, Booth felt like they were pretty much where they started, they could put Claire at the crime scene and she had a motive, but they couldn't tie her to the murder weapon. He was more than ready to leave with Parker so they could enjoy their weekend. And, of course, he was hungry.

"Shaw, get Blake's useless statement and then let her go. Sweets, you get Kelly's statement and sober him up, or sober him up and then get the statement. Getting him drunk again was your idea; you deal with it. Then you arrest him for commanding his ship drunk and putting at risk the life of his passengers. Give him to the Metro cops and tell them that we'll send to them our statements, the blood test we took yesterday, and anything else they need on Monday before five. I don't want this drunken Popeye in a boat if I can help it."

Once he had given his orders, Booth called Parker and they left for lunch and their free weekend.

* * *

Booth and Parker spent the rest of Saturday together playing ball and video games, eating pizza and relaxing. On Sunday they picked up Hank from his residence to go to mass with him, and then had lunch with him. And later that evening, they had dinner with Alex and her daughters.

Booth was really happy with the weekend. Even though they had wasted Saturday morning, they had been able to enjoy the rest of the weekend, they had played, relaxed, visited Hank and even spent time with Alex and her girls. It had been a very nice weekend, and they had a very good time. The best of it all was that Parker was warming more and more to Alex; they already seemed pretty content together and the kid seemed to trust the doctor. This was making Booth very happy, and it was making him really hopeful in his relationship with Alex.

* * *

Monday arrived, and after taking Parker to school, Booth went to his office expecting an update on Molony's case. He indeed found Shaw waiting for him with the latest update on the case.

Opening his door and letting Shaw precede him, the two agents entered his office. "Okay, Shaw, what can you tell me?"

"Evelyn left the official statements of the witnesses on your desk this morning. We've found some calls between Liam's apartment and the Casper's house; Mrs. Casper has a personal account in which we found some charges for hotel rooms, we interviewed some personnel and they remember her and Liam; and Liam penciled in his calendar when and where he met Casper and Blake, the cruises…"

"So we can definitively prove the affair," Booth said more than asked.

"Yes, sir," Shaw confirmed. "Dr. Hodgins called yesterday night with new information. Apparently, Miss Wick found abrasions on the extremities of Molony's body… as if he was attacked with a grater… and Hodgins found some kind of glue in the abrasions. He said that the glue was barnacle secretion from the barnacles on the ship. There's an area of the hull where the barnacles are noticeably younger and smaller than the others, and he thinks that's where Liam went out through."

"So Claire and Liam fight, he goes over the railing, but holds on to something and tries to go up again injuring himself with the barnacles in the process. How does this help us?"

"The barnacles should have feed on Liam's blood and they may have DNA. They may only have Liam's DNA, but if Claire injured herself during the fight, and considering that Liam was bigger and stronger than her it's a big possibility, then maybe they also have Claire's DNA," Shaw explained what Hodgins had told her over the phone the previous evening.

"Okay. Send someone to get those barnacles to Hodgins," Booth ordered. However, he saw Shaw's semi-guilty expression and immediately knew that she had already done that. "You already sent someone, right?"

"Yes, sir. The barnacles should be arriving to the Jeffersonian right about now."

"Good job, Shaw. Bring Claire in. And take Sweets with you."

Shaw smiled brightly seeing that she was allowed to make the arrest by herself, and answered with a firm, "yes, sir."

"Oh, and Shaw, when they put you on top to run the FBI, don't forget about me," Booth told her jokingly before she could leave the office.

* * *

A few hours later, Hodgins called to confirm that he found Claire Casper's DNA with Liam Molony's in the barnacles, proving that she killed him.

Booth, then talked to Claire and presenting her the evidence they had gathered, forced her to admit that she killed Liam and why. She had been angry at him for putting her perfect little world at risk, they argued, her glass broke and she cut herself with it. It was a hell of an argument, but it wasn't until Liam called her a desperate old hag that she snapped and put the hook through his brain.

* * *

With the case over, Booth went back to his other duties, and the squints went back to work full-time on identifying the remains of the Amalia Rose.

By Friday, the remains had all been identified and prepared to be transported to the Great Oak Cemetery in Maryland to receive proper burial, Angela had finished the portraits, and the exhibit was ready for its opening on Monday morning.

"The exhibit is ready so the press conference will be tomorrow night," Angela told Cam entering her office.

"Great."

"Not that it's any of my business, but I, um, sort of thought that you'd be more interested," Angela asked with a worried expression. She wasn't sure of what was going through her boss' head.

"Interested? Is that what I'm supposed to be?" Cam asked annoyed. She didn't like being judged by the artist.

"I just thought…"

"That because I'm black, I should be all over this," Cam deadpanned. "I already know what happened. My family was property along with about 15 millions other Africans. They were traded like cattle, and died like cattle. And I am trying really hard not to let those bones out there to get to me."

"I'm sorry, Cam. I should have been more sensitive," Angela apologized. She had expected Cam to be passionate about giving names to these people, but she hadn't considered the possibility of this project being extremely painful for the coroner.

"It's fine. It's all good."

"Yeah, that's why Paul and Booth had been in and out of the lab constantly, offering dinners and homemade lasagnas and such," Angela answered showing her total disbelief. "You're not fine. But I won't bother you. I'll just suggest a girls' night out tonight in preparation of tomorrow's press conference."

"I'm going on a date with Paul, but thanks anyway," Cam rejected the offer politely and with a smile. She was clearly pleased to have Angela's support.

* * *

The Amalia Rose's press conference was a great success. Everyone was there: the squints, Booth and Alex, Shaw, Paul, some FBI agents, Evelyn with Wendell … They claimed to attend together as friends only, and Booth wasn't going to argue. If they needed to be friends before they became something else, it was fine by him. Only Sweets and Daisy were missing it because they had decided to go on a date to see if they could really save their relationship or not.

The board of directors, Goodman included, and the press congratulated Cam on a well done project; so did some civil rights associations that had sent someone to represent them. The squints and Booth also congratulated Cam, who dismissed it as team work, and showed how pleased she was with the job the Jeffersonian had done.

It was clear to everyone that the Amalia Rose's exhibition was going to be a great success, and a beautiful memorial for the victims.

Later, during the gala, Booth had the opportunity to dance with Cam and congratulate her properly and check that she had put the ghosts of the Amalia Rose to rest. He was dancing with Alex, when he got the reassurance he was seeking. Cam and Paul were twisting on the dance floor looking relaxed and happy in each other's arms. Booth didn't know what they were talking about, but suddenly Cam let a quiet but honest laugh escape her lips.


	14. The Frank Castle Resurgence

**Chapter 13:**

**The Frank Castle Resurgence**

**Timeline:** Second week of November, 2010 (seventh week upon the team's return to D.C.)

**Season/episode:** Post 6x06 - “The Shallow in the Deep”

* * *

 

I have just arrived to D.C. I’m here because I have a war to fight.

Criminals run free among us, hidden in our streets, our neighborhoods… The nice lawyer student next door may be a psychopath who buries people alive, or the friendly old man who plays chess in the park could be a rapist, or maybe the quiet mousey man of the fifth floor likes to cut people into tiny little pieces...

It is my mission to eliminate them. To protect the innocent, to protect society, I must take these dangerous people out. These evil people must die, and I’m ready to do the killing.

* * *

 

After the Amalia Rose press conference, Booth took Alex home and left her with a kiss and a promise of lunch on Monday. Sunday was spent with Parker playing ball in the park and putting together a remote-controlled car.

A relaxing and enjoyable weekend left Booth mentally and emotionally prepared to start seriously working on the Gravedigger case during the week that followed, on top on his normal workload.

When the trial against Taffet started last winter, Booth wasn’t on his A game: he still wasn’t completely confident in his abilities after his brain surgery and he was dealing with Brennan’s rejection. At that time, he had been unable to see the amount of holes their case had. Now, he was _back_ , he felt stronger than ever both mentally and emotionally, and he could only be extremely glad that Caroline had only prosecuted Taffet for the kidnapping and murder of Terrence Gilroy because they would have lost any other case. As it is now, she’s in prison awaiting execution and they could still try her for the other kidnappings. She still had one appeal left and her accomplice or accomplices were still at large. Booth was not going to allow any of them to escape justice.

And so, he started a full blown investigation.

The first thing was to separate the case into two cases. On one hand, Booth had the original kidnappings designed to obtain money in ransoms, and on the other, the cleaning operation she started once the Jeffersonian got involved. Vega’s murder, Hodgins’, Brennan’s and Booth’s kidnappings had been all part of a plan to either slow them down or stop them completely. Those should be set aside for later, and he had to investigate the original kidnappings first.

The Gravedigger’s team, as he had started calling it in his head, made mistakes in the Gilroy and Kent kidnappings because they were still learning and polishing their method. If they made more in other kidnappings Booth may be able to find Taffet’s accomplices and secure a prison or capital sentence for all of them, regardless of any appeal.

When they had found Ryan and Matthew Kent’s bodies, the FBI had known only of six kidnappings, but Booth was sure that there had been more because there were long periods of apparent inactivity between them. It seemed as if the Gravedigger appeared and disappeared randomly. That just couldn’t be true. He was sure of it. The six known kidnappings had taken place, both the actual kidnapping and the burial, in the states bordering with D.C. -Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware- and D.C. itself. They seemed to work in a pretty localized area, so he decided to start there.

It took him two full days of doing nothing but a hell of a lot of phone calls to a bunch of different local and state police agencies and attorney offices of those six states, and of course a lot of painful conversations with family members of the victims, but he found quite a number of victims.

He didn’t want to risk missing any victim in anywhere, so he called ASAC Charlie Burns and Robert Corby, his two right-hand men, Shaw and Caroline and behind the closed door of his office, he explained the situation to them.

He ordered everyone to keep absolutely everything classified. They couldn’t risk Taffet or her accomplices even suspecting that they were investigating again. Since Taffet was imprisoned, her accomplices had became inactive but if they found out that the FBI was not as clueless as they thought, they could reactivate and commit new crimes or they could disappear forever.

“If I so much as dream about any of you talking about this in your sleep, I’ll have your asses. Are we clear people?”

“Cherie, you are cute but don’t you go giving me orders. You aren’t handsome enough,” Caroline answered in her sarcastic voice.

“I already have five more victims, Caroline, and that’s only in our little parcel of the country. With Taffet on death row, people are no longer afraid to talk. I really need everyone to keep quiet and only talk to us. I really need you to keep witnesses, cops, attorneys, victims, family members, and any other person of interest remotely related to the case quiet.”

“Don’t get your panties twisted, Cherie. I’ll keep record of any statement, evidence report you send me, you name it, secured in my office safe. I’ll get you a gag order from a nice judge and keep everyone properly gagged.”

“Thanks, Caroline,” Booth said with a smile. “As for the rest of you…”

“Yeah, we got it, Boss. If we breathe anything, we’re toast,” Corby answered with a smirk.

“Good. Then I’m going to tell you what you have to do.” Booth decided that everyone was ready to receive their orders and get back to work. “Shaw, I’m assigning you a forensic team. You and said team are going to go visit our neighbors and bring back everything they have: statements, financial records, clothes of the victims, the containers… everything you can find. If you need warrants or any legal help, call Caroline or me directly.

“Bob, Charlie, you are going to start with Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina, and then work your way east and south, all the way to Alaska and California. Call every dammed local and state police department, D.A office… Hell, I don’t care if you have to call every candy store! Find me any and all potential victims of the Gravedigger, and then follow the leads. I want to know every person who once came within a mile radio of Heather Taffet.”

“Got it,” answered Corby with a pained expression. They were going to be glued to their chairs and their phones for the next decade.

“What about New Jersey, New York… you know, up north and west?” Charlie asked knowing that Booth hadn’t left the North West states out by mistake.

“I know an agent in New York Field Office that I trust to do that for you. I’ll be calling him as soon as you leave my office. Any more questions?”

When he saw them shake their heads in the universal no sign, Booth dismissed all of them with one last warning. “And not a word about this to the Squints or anyone in the Jeffersonian. No one, but the people in this office and the forensic team I gave you, is to know that this investigation even exists.”

With a sharp “yes, sir,” the three agents left the office to start their part of the investigation. Caroline reminded behind, though, as it seemed she had some opinions to voice.

“Cherie, are you sure you don’t want to get your squints to help?”

“They’re convinced that the Gravedigger is in prison like everyone else. Taffet’s accomplices won’t act as long as we keep everything quiet. Why put them under unnecessary stress and fear? Hodgins is terrified of this creep and he’s going to have a baby soon… he doesn’t need the extra stress, Caroline.

“Our techs know what to look for, they’ve studied the case. But, and this is important, they haven’t gone over it a thousand times. They can look at the case with fresh eyes and no traumas. Caroline, none of the squints noticed that there’s absolutely no way Taffet could have carried me to the ship on her own!”

Caroline nodded accepting the agent’s reasoning. He was right, the techs assigned to the case knew the case but weren’t emotionally invested in it, and maybe what they needed was a pair of fresh eyes and a new perspective.

“But what if you find some physical evidence that our techs can’t work out? Or if someone accidentally tips Taffet off?”

“Then I’ll bring them up to date. I don’t plan on leaving them in the dark forever, only until we have real results,” Booth told her honestly.

“And by results you mean the creep in handcuffs, right Cherie?”

Booth smiled at Caroline’s perceptive abilities, and the prosecutor stood up ready to leave the office. She gave one more warning to the agent, though.

“That New York agent you’re getting involved better be as cute as you, you hear me, Cherie. I don’t like working with stupid, ugly agents.”

“Don’t worry, Caroline, you’ll love him. He’s a cute, sarcastic, bad-ass cop… your type.”

“Good.” With that parting word, Caroline left Booth’s office closing the door behind her.

* * *

 

As soon as the door closed, Booth picked up his phone and called his friend in the New York Field Office.

Booth spent some years in the New York Field Office after entering the reserves of the Army in 1996, and graduating from Quantico. Even though, he was recalled to active duty repeatedly or voluntarily opted for it for years; he still made some friends in the city that never sleeps.

One of those friends was a sarcastic, bad-ass NYPD cop with an apparent lack of respect for authority but surprisingly a good amount of respect for servicemen. Mike had shown him around the city, told him where the more seedy places were, helped him get a good number of informants… and that getting punished by the bosses was worth it if you found someone’s killer. But most important, he had helped him relax and have fun at a time when he needed it; he had been a friend.

They had similar memories of horrible childhoods but they never really talked about it, not more than a lost comment here and there. Both were deeply affected by their jobs and the innocent victims they found in them. Somehow all this made them closer, deepened their trust and friendship, overcoming their fundamental differences.

While Mike claimed to be happy as a womanizer bachelor, Booth wanted love and a family. Yet when Rebecca came along, Mike was always ready to listen. He was the only one that didn’t feel the need to warn him against Rebecca when Booth followed her and baby Parker to D.C. and went back to the reserves, this time permanently. Or at least, then he thought it would be definitive; he thought he would never go back to the Army. He wanted to stay his twenty to get his pension, but he wasn’t willing to go to war again. He had barely arrived for the birth after running away from Fort Benning where he had been training new snipers, and he wasn’t willing to miss any more milestones or even risk doing it because he was half the country or world away. Mike understood that Booth was following his son, that Booth needed his son. For a man claiming to never want to be tied down, he was the one who best understood Booth’s needs.

Mike had also been the one who called Hank Latrell to get Booth help to control his gambling problem. Mike understood addictions; his parents were alcoholics and liquor did kill his mother in the end, and made his childhood a living hell. Mike recognized the symptoms, and when Booth refused to listen to him, he called someone he knew Booth would listen to. In a way, he had saved his life, or at least stopped him from destroying it.

They kept in contact through the years, and when, two years ago, Mike had found himself fighting against a corrupt A.D.A and completely disenchanted with the justice system and everyone involved in it, Booth had offered his help. Booth had just been promoted to Chief of Major Crimes, and he had traveled himself to New York to help Mike. A.D.A. Driver had been on her way to Ricker’s a week later, and Mike had turned his resignation from the NYPD to his boss.

Booth convinced Mike to go into the FBI and to D.C. where he stayed only a year. After a year in Major Crimes here in D.C. it was more than obvious that his 29 years of experience were being wasted by keeping him as a Special Agent, and he was moved to New York to fill an A.S.A.C position in their Major Crimes department.

“Mike, I have a job for you,” Booth said into the phone as soon as he heard his friend answering.

“You’re the boss,” came the sarcastic reply. Mike had taught him a lot of things when he started, and now Booth was his superior in the FBI and Mike loved teasing him about it. They had a good-natured rivalry.

“It’s about a case… the Gravedigger… but I need you to keep it completely quiet.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve seen the news. How the hell did that little board carry you to the ship?”

“Language, Mike. And that’s exactly the point.”

Booth put Mike up to date, and got him to investigate the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

* * *

 

By the end of the week, he finally had a complete list of all the victims of the Gravedigger’s kidnappings. There were a total of fifteen kidnappings and sixteen victims in total. The new nine victims were the five that Booth had found in their neighbor states, one from Ohio that Burns found, and another three from New York and New Jersey that Mike found for him.

Booth had also fifteen hermetic containers: the beer vat from the Kent kidnapping, three coffins, two car roof boxes, and a total of nine freezers. He had the clothes of all the victims and medical reports with photographs thanks to the doctors who treated the victims after their ordeals.

At the time of the kidnappings, the doctors noticed the patients’ estate so they informed their local or state police agencies and handed everything to them. However, the parents had feared retaliation and refused to fill statements until now. The local and state authorities had no knowledge of the Gravedigger because the FBI agent assigned to the case before Booth and his superiors had decided to keep most details classified fearing copycats. Not knowing the importance of the case and lack of communication between police agencies, left local and state cops with no other option than to accept the parents’ negative of anything happening as a fact, and all those cases went unsolved and never even reached their respective attorneys offices or the FBI.

Fortunately, now everyone believed that the Gravedigger was on death row, and everyone was willing to talk. Shaw had been able to talk to the victims, their parents, the doctors and the cops. The cops gave her the reports they had and what little evidence they had, like the victims’ clothes; and the tech team had recuperated all the containers. They were all still where the Gravedigger buried them, in isolated and abandoned cornfields, junkyards, wood areas, etc.

Shaw and the techs had come back from their exhausting trip around their neighbor states loaded with goodies on the early hours of Sunday. Booth gave them all two days off and told them to return on Wednesday ready to work on this case only –except for Shaw who would still have to work with the Jeffersonian.

* * *

 

Meanwhile, Booth, thinking on the long and emotionally draining investigation that he had ahead of him, decided to make the best of his last weekend with Parker until next month. They spent the weekend playing ball or with his new remote-controlled car, they visited Pops and played dominoes with him, and they even had pizza with Alex and her daughters.

When Sunday arrived and Booth had to take Parker to Rebecca’s place, he was sad to see his son go, but he had never felt so calm in this situation. Before, he had always feared that Rebecca wouldn’t allow him to see Parker again; he had never known when he could see his son again. This time, he was confident than a month from now his son would be back at his house, and he knew that until then he could Skype with him.

The fear and the uncertainty were gone, and to top it all, Alex invited him to have dinner at her house.

* * *

 

By the time he arrived to Alex’s apartment, Sarah and Maya had already had dinner, and were ready for bed. They got exited with Booth presence, though, so it took them a while to get the fifteen-month old baby to sleep, and even longer to wear down the almost four-year old girl.

“Finally!” Alex exclaimed. “They really love you… I don’t think Maya likes my stories so much anymore.”

“It’s the novelty… and the funny voices,” Booth answered humbly. He was smiling; he really loved spending time with the two little ladies.

Booth followed Alex to the kitchen. “So… you said dinner… may I ask what’s on the menu?” he asked playfully.

Alex laughed at his clear hint. “Well… answering your question. Both of them. I made pasta but I’m not sure there’s enough for both of us… and yes, dessert is on the menu… if you want, of course…”

She was blushing and Booth couldn’t stop himself. He had to kiss her, gently but thoroughly, showing he was indeed interested in the dessert. He hugged her letting his hand burry into her long, free hair; and her arms moved to circle his waist.

He broke the kiss slowly separating their lips without breaking their embrace. He chuckled nervously and asked a little breathless, “so… pasta?”

That broke the tension, and she laughed before turning around and leaving his arms to reheat the pasta. Booth busied himself with the table and the dishes. He didn’t want to pressure her and a little distance sounded like a good idea at the moment.

Their relationship was progressing nicely; they have been to countless lunch and dinner dates, even more numerous phone calls, and even some play dates with the kids. Yet this was the first time he had been invited to her house for dinner, and more importantly, it was the first time that _dessert_ , continuing with the euphemism, was a possibility. He hadn’t planned on asking, preferring instead to let her make the decision of asking him to stay or not, but he had felt so comfortable in her presence, everything had felt so natural that he had been unable to stop himself.

And, damn, she was gorgeous in those dresses she wore to work! Even without the makeup and the shoes, and her hair messed up from running after the kids, she looked beautiful, as far as he was concerned.

Dinner was a relaxed affair, after which Booth offered to leave and made as clear as possible that he didn’t want to pressure her into anything. “I can stay or leave, your decision. And… dessert or not… your decision too…”

“You’re blushing, Booth,” she answered with a smirk. “I’m pretty sure we’re both too old to blush.”

“I’m so not blushing,” he denied the undeniable making her laugh.

“Whatever you say.”

She smiled at him. “I’m going to assume that you have a bag with a change of clothes in your SUV… bring it up.”

Without saying a word, Booth kissed her once more and made a run for his bag.

Not five minutes later they were enjoying the aforementioned dessert in the comfort of Alex’s elegantly decorated bedroom.

* * *

 

Monday arrived with a smiling Booth entering the Hoover more than ready to continue investigating the Gravedigger kidnappings. He was almost in the safety of his office, when certain psychologist decided to ambush him. He probably wanted to talk about Daisy or his none-existence relationship with Bones. The boy was like a broken record!

Evelyn stopped her boss with his messages. “Sir, Alex called. So did Maya and she said that it was very urgent.”

“Thanks, Evelyn. I’ll call immediately,” Booth answered smiling at his efficient secretary. He then went into his office trying his best to ignore Sweets and his questioning glare.

Of course, the psychologist followed him uninvited and was barely able to avoid being hit with the door on his baby duck face.

Booth sat in his chair, picked up his phone and dialed Alex’s number while booting up his computer. He had planned to call later anyway. After last night and this morning, and knowing that Alex had a late start at work today, he had wanted to hear her voice.

They ended getting up late, showering wasn’t a quick task by any means with two people being a little playful… and then Alex insisted on having breakfast together. He was already late, he could go in later, or so she had claimed. He had been way too happy to care and had stayed for a quick breakfast, and left her apartment only after kissing her goodbye and promising dinner. Still he somehow felt the need to talk to her again.

“Hello, I’m looking for Miss Maya,” he said in a playful voice when Alex picked her phone.

Alex laughed and gave the phone to Maya. “Booth!” the girl yelled in his ear.

“Hey, Maya. How are you? What was so urgent?” Booth asked gently.

“Can you make pancakes tomorrow? Today we had cereal…” Maya complained. It seemed that she has associated his presence in the morning, regardless of in which apartment she was in, with pancakes and she was disappointed today when he hadn’t make them.

“You want pancakes for breakfast?” Booth asked smiling at the girl’s innocence. “Then, I’ll make you pancakes for breakfast, honey.”

Sweets was listening intently to the conversation, or more accurately, half of it. For him it was already obvious that Booth was dating this Maya and intended on making her breakfast, which told him that their relationship had progressed to the point of being sexual. Being as he was convinced that Booth and Doctor Brennan were in love with each other, this was for him a disaster of catastrophic consequences.

“Great!!” the girl shouted. Booth heard Alex chastise her, telling her to thank him and to use her inside voice. “Thanks, Booth.”

“You’re welcome, Maya.”

“Bye Booth,” the girl said and hung up after hearing his goodbye.

Seeing that he wasn’t going to talk to both of them in one call, Booth dialed again.

“Sorry Booth, Maya hangs up after the goodbyes. She doesn’t give the phone to me,” Alex said immediately after picking the phone. She knew Booth was calling to talk to her because the message she left with his secretary included both of them. If she was honest with herself, she was only calling because she wanted to hear his voice. She hadn’t been really worried about their dinner date; she knew he would call with the details whenever he had them.

“Good morning, Alex,” Booth said sweetly. He couldn’t help the smile forming on his face when he heard the woman. “You called. I assume that you wanted to confirm our date.”

Sweets stared in astonishment at the agent. His smile, his body language, everything told him that he was sleeping with this other woman. He couldn’t believe it. Booth was apparently dating two women at the same time. This wasn’t a disaster; this was the emotional equivalent of the apocalypses!

“Yeah, I would like to know more about it.” Booth could hear her moving around the house, probably getting ready to leave for work. “Don’t laugh at me, okay,” she said in a voice that showed her embarrassment, “but I kind of just wanted to talk to you about nothing… just… you know…”

“Oh, I do know… I was going to call you to talk about nothing too,” Booth reassured her. “But talking about something… I called the restaurant on the drive… and yes, I used the hands-free thingy… anyway, I already have a table. I’ll pick you up at 7, baby.” He rarely called her baby, babe or any other moniker, he was used to call her Alex, but Sweets face of absolute horror inspired him to play a little prank on the busy body psychologist.

“So you’re driving?”

“Yeah, I’m driving you back and forth. I’m a gentleman,” he said in a sexy voice that insinuated the opposite.

Alex laughed softly, clearly not bothered by the implications. “I have to go or I’ll be late. I’ll see you tonight, Booth.”

“Yeah, I do have a job to do, you know,” he answered good-naturedly. “See you tonight, baby.”

By the time he hung up the phone, Sweets was white as a sheet and his jaw was hanging so low that it was going to hit the floor. Booth could see the terror in his eyes, probably running over a million of catastrophic scenarios that could come from Booth’s apparent unfaithfulness.

He was absolutely right. Sweets was panicking. He considered Booth to be one of the most morally rigorous men he’s ever met. If he was dating two women, then something really bad was going on in his psyche. Maybe he wasn’t over Dr. Brennan yet. If that was the case and he was trying to move on he could try to have not serious relationships. Yet Booth would never cheat, even if that was the case, because it was against everything his moral code told him to do. The only logical conclusion he could find was that Booth was still very hurt from Brennan’s rejection last year, and if he considered going to Maluku an abandonment of their love and their partnership, it could have woken up some really bad abandonment issues from his childhood. Booth was probably heading to an emotional breakdown worse than Fisher’s twenty-hour-sleep spread. It could be worse than the massive suicide of the Asgard! This was wicked bad! Wicked bad!

“Sweets, loose the shocked face. I date like any other guy. I need a coffee and then I have work to do so you either follow me to the break room and ask whatever is on your mind or not, but move.” Booth ordered already walking out of his office.

He was intercepted by Evelyn, his ever efficient helper, who was already carrying a mug of black, hot coffee for him. “Thanks, Evelyn. You’re the best.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Sweets still in complete shock followed Booth out of his office, and barely avoided colliding with the agent when he stopped to take the coffee from Evelyn. The abrupt stop at least gave the shrink his speech back, and he croaked: “you’re dating two women!”

“Well, technically I suppose you should say that I’m dating three women, right Evelyn?” Booth said with an air of indifference. He looked at Evelyn briefly, and she immediately caught on to Booth’s little joke.

“Yes, sir, you’re definitively dating three women,” Evelyn answered not bothered by it at all, as if it was the most normal thing.

The world was going to hell in a handbasket, Sweets was sure of it. Booth was dating three women at one time, and he must be doing it openly because his secretary knew. Moreover, she not only knew, she found it completely normal.

_Yep, hell is freezing over and Booth is having a ginormous emotional breakdown… and maybe I should warn the clowns of this city to stay away from him. This is bad, really bad… I can already see dead clowns all around!_

Booth glared at the panicked looking psychologist disappointed in how easily he could believe he was cheating and stringing along three different women. He would never cheat, and if Sweets thinks that he would do it, then he’s the one that needs his head examined.

In any case Booth didn’t have time to ponder Sweets’ neurosis; he had a lot of work to do. He ignored the psychologist and went back to his office, closing the door behind him and on Sweets’ face.

* * *

 

Once in the safety of his office, comfortably seated in his chair, and with a black coffee to fuel him, Booth picked up the phone and called Mike. He had an idea that he hoped could get them some kind of lead, and he wanted Mike to investigate it.

“Mike, I’ve made a timeline of the kidnappings. The first three occurred once a year, but later they would do two kidnappings a year. They aren’t separated exactly a year, and later they aren’t separated exactly six months either, so it makes it more difficult to see the pattern. But now that we have all the victims, and I understand better how Taffet thinks, I can see it.”

“So they took three kidnappings to learn and when they thought that their method was perfect they went up to twice a year,” Mike said, clearly thinking out loud. “We should probably concentrate on the first three kidnappings then. If they made mistakes, and we already know they did with the first and the third one, we may be able to find Taffet’s accomplices.”

“Exactly, man. That’s exactly what I want you to do. I’ll send you a copy of everything I have on the case by courier but I want you to concentrate on those first three kidnappings. See what you can find,” Booth explained his plans to Mike. “I’ll have the forensic team go over every piece of physical evidence we have, and I’ll have Corby, Burns and Shaw investigate the other victims. Then we’ll have a meeting here in D.C. to put everything together and decide what to do next.”

“Perfect. I’ll get to it as soon as that courier is here. Did you tell my boss that I’m doing some extra work for you?” came Mike’s sarcastic answer through the phone.

“Which one James or that teacher you’re crazy about even though you refuse to admit it? I did tell James, but somehow I don’t think that’s what worries you,” Booth teased his friend. The Irish Casanova met an art teacher days after his assignment to the New York Field Office a year ago, and he was still dating her. They were now unofficially living together with Mike spending most of his nights at her house, and Booth knew for a fact that his friend was more than a little infatuated with the lady.

“No, I’m not worried about James but Jordan would have my ass, and yours, if I miss her sister’s birthday party. You better account for that for your little meeting.”

“She puts up with you, so I won’t risk having her going after my ass,” Booth answered good-naturedly, and heard his friend laugh at his dig.

After assuring Mike that he will do his best to ensure that their meeting won’t affect his personal life or his cases in New York, both friends cut off the conversation with a warm goodbye.

* * *

 

Booth had been working most part of the morning, when a call came telling him that a body had been found inside of a gigantic chocolate tablet. He thought the agent on the phone had been joking until Charlie came to his office to confirm the strange finding.

Hoping to not find Willy Wonka at the crime scene pulling one of his stings, the FBI agent called the Jeffersonian to inform them of the case and promised to meet them there.

* * *

 

The list of criminals who must die is long, but I’ve already decided that my first target will be the Gravedigger. I’ll have to wait for an opportunity to do so, but I won’t risk her going free in an appeal.

Until the opportunity to kill Taffet presents itself I won’t be idle, though. I’m already stalking someone else: the man that killed my spotter, my brother in arms. It’ll be soon; one of these nights I’ll kill him. He will pay for what he did.

* * *

 

**A/N 1:** **_If you do not know who Frank Castle is from Marvel, continue reading there will be a reference to him in this and future chapters, otherwise feel free to skip this note._**

Frank Castle (born F. Castiglione) is The Punisher, a Marvel antihero.

His family (wife and two kids) is killed by the mob in Central Park (NYC) because they witness the execution of an informant. He survives, dresses himself in a body armor with the symbol of a skull printed on it, and kills the murderers of his family. After that, he becomes a vigilante that leads a war (it’s how he calls it) against crime. He uses all kind of illegal actions against criminals: kidnapping, extortion, blackmail… and murder. He was an ex-marine (SEAL training, airborne, sniper school), and he’s very well trained in diverse hand-to-hand combat techniques, and in the use of multiple weapons.

 **A/N 2** : **_If you do not know who Mike Logan is from “Law and Order”, continue reading there will be a reference to him in this and future chapters, otherwise feel free to skip this note._**

Michael (Mike) Logan, interpreted by Chris Noth, was one of the detectives of the show “Law and Order” during the first 5 seasons.

He was the younger and junior of the pair of detectives who investigated the cases. He was a bad-ass cop, hotheaded but noble.

He had a pretty sad childhood quite similar to Booth’s. Mike’s father was a veteran and a beat cop so money was always tight; he was an alcoholic too. His mother was an alcoholic too, and she used to abuse Mike physically. The environment in which he grew up was pretty screwed, to say the least.

The character returned to Law and Order franchise in the spin-off “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” for 3 more seasons (approximately 10 years after he left L&O at the end of season 5).

This time he was the mature and senior detective, and he showed the ropes to the younger ones. But he was still the same Mike Logan, hotheaded, noble and unwilling to let murderers escape justice.

During his last season on the show, Mike butt heads with A.D.A Driver, who was corrupt and had manipulated various cases, incarcerating innocent people to further her career. Disenchanted with the system and disgusted to be unable to put her being bars, Mike retires from the NYPD.

 **A/N 3:** **_The Gravedigger’s story arc._**

What can I say? It does have a few holes here and there... The 2 biggest ones (and most obvious too) are: the magic way in which Angela finds Terrence Gilroy’s body, and Heather Taffet taking Booth to the Navy ship on her own. The first one, I’m not going to touch it; it stays at it is. However, I’m going to fix the second one in the obvious way: Taffet had an accomplice(s).

**A/N 4: _Alexandra (Alex) Foster._**

For those who are curious or want to put a face to the character, I imagine Sarah Shahi playing her role.

**A/N 5: _tumblr._**

If you needed A/N1 or 2, and you want some pics to get a better idea of those characters, you can find some them in my tumblr.

And anyone that’s curious and wants to know more about the story, you can find it there too.

You can use this link: <http://dorothyoz39.tumblr.com/tagged/Booth%27s%20New%20Life>

Or you can use the link in my profile to go to my tumblr and then use the tag “Booth’s New Life” to find it. You have a page for my “Bones fics” so it’s quite easy to find.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think.


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